Memory Zero (Spook Squad 1)

He squeezed her hand briefly, and then leaned back in the chair, his expression thoughtful. “Finley found a microchip in your armpit. Military in design, and probably inserted when you were about nine.”

She touched her armpit. He’d told her he was merely taking a skin sample for further tests. Odd she hadn’t picked up the doc’s lie. She’d always been able to pick up Jack’s slightest variation of the truth.

“Why would someone want to put a microchip in me, especially at that age?”

“I don’t know. All we know is that it was used to track your movements.”

“That makes no sense.” A cold sensation ran over her. It wasn’t caused so much by the fact that someone had wanted to trace her movements twenty-four hours a day, but that Jack might have been involved. He had always known where to find her. But if she believed he was involved, she’d also have to believe their friendship was nothing more than a lie, a setup from the beginning. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it.

Jack was her friend. Just about her only friend.

“Can you remember anything about your childhood? Your parents?”

She shook her head. “The only thing I had was a hand-drawn picture of my mother, but the bomb destroyed it. The doctors at the home said I must have undergone some severe trauma to forget my past so completely.”

“And you’ve never bothered trying to rediscover that past?”

“Of course I have. That’s why Jack set me up an unregistered link into State—” She broke off as he smiled grimly.

“So that’s why you went back to retrieve your com-unit. You sent yourself some of Jack’s files.”

He didn’t miss much. “Yes.” There wasn’t much point in denying it now. “But I haven’t had the chance to look at them yet.”

“Then we’ll make time later tonight.” He glanced at his watch, and then pushed upright. “We’re late for our dinner date with my friends.”

“What about my bag? And what about Jack’s clone?”

“We’ll collect your bag on the way out. As for the clone, he’ll still be here tomorrow. This is more important.”

More important to him, maybe. “And the disks?”

He glanced at the com-unit. “I don’t think we should risk it. Someone’s obviously got a line in here, someone who doesn’t want us to discover any more about you.”

Someone with enough clout to get two saboteurs into the heart of the SIU. But no matter where they went, they would still face that problem. She’d witnessed Jack hacking into enough systems to know how easy it was. “If someone’s trying to stop us, they’ll be watching the lines into your place and mine.”

“Maybe.”

A sudden hint of amusement played around his full lips. She frowned at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Maybe Jack will help us.”

“Yeah, right. Hand over the disks so he can translate them for us?” She snorted. “That’s really going to happen.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He hesitated, considering her for a moment.

Something in his eyes made her remember that this was a man with an agenda of his own. He might have saved her life, but that didn’t mean she should completely trust him.

“I mean,” he said, “we should visit Kazdan’s apartment and try using his computers to read the disks.”

She stared at him, wondering what in hell he was talking about now. “I went to Jack’s place. I told you, it was stripped.”

His expression wasn’t altogether friendly. “I said apartment, not house. S

urely you remember his apartment? You must have visited it at least once or twice.”

His tone insinuated she’d been doing more than simply visiting. She clenched her fingers, but she somehow resisted the urge to hit him. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard these accusations, so she should be used to them by now. But for some reason, the fact that it was Gabriel hurt her more than it should have.

“Jack never had an apartment.” It was on the tip of her tongue to refute his insinuation, but she held back. No one else had ever believed her, so why should he?