Memory Zero (Spook Squad 1)

“Why not now?” Morning was only a few hours away.

He smiled. It made his almost fierce features look gentle, fatherly. Yet there was a haunted light in his kind brown eyes. “Because, my dear, you look dead on your feet, and you’re bleeding onto my sofa. You need a shower, some patching up and sleep. In that order.”

She glanced down. Blood was oozing from the graze on her arm, dripping steadily onto the sofa. She shifted her arm, letting it drip onto her clothes. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Come on, let’s get you sorted out.” She watched him rise and move into the next room. The sense of wrongness was growing, and though she didn’t understand why, it was something she couldn’t ignore. Biting her lip, she grabbed the disks and the wristcom from her bag, then rose and walked around to the bookcase. Kneeling, she carefully slipped them behind the dust-laden fiction books on the bottom shelf. Maybe it was a silly precaution. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but she felt safer with both items hidden. With a final look to ensure she’d left no telltale smudge near the books, she turned and followed Karl into the next room.

GABRIEL PUSHED HIS WAY THROUGH the large crowd of people and ducked under the yellow police tape. Before he’d taken two steps, a young police officer caught his arm and hauled him around.

“I’m sorry, sir, but no one’s allowed any closer.”

He bit down on his impatience and flashed his badge. “Any word on casualties yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard. But they’ve set up a temporary headquarters over near those vans.” The young officer pointed toward several white vans parked half a block down from the smoking building.

“Thanks,” he said, and strode past the emergency vehicles and the fire-hose-armed men and women who poured water onto the flames. The night was warm, as if the explosion had blasted the chill from the air, and a trickle of sweat ran down his cheek. The red and blue emergency lights cut through the white of the spotlights, washing color across the white-clad backs of men and women who were still helping survivors from the damaged building. Thankfully, there seemed to be plenty of emergency workers. But an eerie silence still hung over the entire area, as if everyone working here feared a raised voice would bring on yet another disaster. His gaze traveled the long line of ambulances.

Stephan had sensed it when Gabriel was kidnapped, had known enough to send Karl to the rescue. Surely if Stephan were dead, he would feel the sudden emptiness, the loss, deep inside. It shouldn’t matter what form that death had found him in—be it as his twin brother, as the fair-haired leader of the Federation, or the hound-dog figure that was Hanrahan. Surely he should know.

Mike Reynolds, Hanrahan’s secretary, glanced up as he approached.

“Any news on Hanrahan yet?” He stopped and studied the screen in front of Reynolds. It was a list of missing persons. Hanrahan and Finley were both on the list.

Reynolds shook his head. “Hanrahan apparently got a warning and called an emergency evac about three minutes before the bomb exploded. He ordered all his personal staff out, but he refused to leave himself until he was sure the building was clear.”

How very much like Stephan. He scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “What about Finley?”

“We know most of the lab staff got out, but their exit points are around the other side of the building. I’m still waiting for a report on them.”

“Do you know anything about the bomb itself?”

Reynolds laughed sourly. “Yeah, it went off.”

But the building still stood. Surely that was a good sign that injuries would be far lower than the men behind this bombing had intended. Damn it, why did he feel nothing but a peculiar emptiness when it came to Stephan? Did that mean his brother’s life was over and his afterlife had begun? He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Any idea where the bomb was placed?”

“It was a car bomb. A couple of State boys noted the driver acting suspiciously. When they tried to question him, the guy simply took off. He drove his vehicle through the security gates, into the parking garage and right into a side wall.”

Which would explain why one side of the building seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage. “How badly were the SIU floors damaged?”

“The parking garage and the first three SIU levels mirror what’s happened above ground, but the rest seem in reasonable shape.”

Stephan’s office was on the third of the underground levels. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Is the building structurally sound?”

“First reports say yes, because the bomb hit the middle of the wall, rather than the core or one of the main outside supports. They’re still in there checking, though.”

Gabriel nodded. “Have they set up a morgue?” Not that he actually wanted to visit such a place—but with the emptiness that resided inside him, he might just have to.

Reynolds shook his head. “They’re ferrying the dead to hospitals. Michaels is checking for identities as they’re being loaded into ambulances, though.” He hesitated and handed Gabriel a sheet of paper. “These are the confirmed deaths.”

He scanned the list of names. There weren’t many, thank God, maybe twelve in all. Hanrahan wasn’t among them. “No unidentified?”

“A couple, both women.” Reynolds grimaced. “We’re lucky we got that warning. It saved a lot of lives.”

He just had to hope it had saved the one life that mattered to him. “Any idea who the warning came from yet?”

Reynolds shook his head. “It went directly to Hanrahan’s office, apparently. It would have been recorded but, as yet, we can’t access the network.”

If Sethanon was behind this bombing, why had there been a warning? There hadn’t been one in any of the other SIU bombings. To give one now didn’t make any sense.