Memory Zero (Spook Squad 1)

Sam raised an eyebrow. The car bomb hadn’t destroyed the SIU—even she knew that. Had Jack failed to keep updated on current events? Would that help them, somehow? She glanced at Gabriel. His eyes were calm, despite the tension and anger she felt in him.

“We have to stop them,” she said.

“Move and you both die,” Jack said, not looking at them.

They were going to die anyway, so why not die trying to stop a fiend? As if reading her thoughts, Gabriel squeezed her hand. Patience, his eyes seemed to say. She frowned and bit her lip. The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open. Five men were inside. The PM, David

Flint, stood at the rear of the elevator, his body shielded by the four Fed boys.

She clenched the laser. They were dead meat if someone didn’t do something. Gabriel wrapped his fingers around her arm, holding her hand down and preventing her from moving. She glared at him.

“Wait,” he repeated. “Just wait.”

“Welcome, Prime Minister,” Jack said, then raised his gun and fired.

The men in the lift didn’t have a chance. Blood sprayed against the elevator walls as the five of them went down.

“Mike,” Jack said, then turned and fired at the guard near them. The bullet took him in the shoulder and flung him back. He fell to the floor. Jack rounded his gun immediately on Sam and Gabriel. “Don’t even think about moving.”

She stared at him. “Have you gone totally mad?”

Jack snorted softly. “Far from it. Mike, you okay?”

The big man made a series of low curses as he pulled himself off the floor.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Jack walked over and picked up a wristcom. “Control, Redfern here. We’re under attack. I repeat, we’re under attack. Flint’s been hit. Stairs are occupied. We’re taking the elevator.”

“Sending teams one and five to help.”

Jack smiled and clicked off the wristcom. “Transformation time, Mike.”

The big man raised his fingers to his face and slowly dug in. With an odd sucking sound, his mouth, nose, everything, began to peel away. David Flint lay underneath the mask.

“A clone,” she murmured.

“A clone,” Jack said, tone smug. “Eddie, time for your magic.”

The skinny man near the elevator door pulled a small box from his pocket and walked to the control panel. Jack squatted down next to her. Slowly, carefully, she eased the laser into her pocket. Gabriel’s was long gone—she hadn’t even seen him move it.

“Time to get out of here, my friend,” Jack said.

“Thanks, but I think I’d rather remain here with the dead.”

“Sorry, that wish has already been granted to Stern.”

He grabbed her shoulder, callously digging his fingers into her wound. Through a haze of pain, she heard Gabriel swear. Almost in slow motion, she saw Jack raise his gun, saw the flash as the bullet was fired. She felt Gabriel’s shudder as if it were her own. Screamed when his blood splashed across her face.

Jack laughed. Then fire leapt into her skull, and for an instant, everything went black.

“Bastard,” she heard Gabriel mutter, voice taut with pain.

He was alive. Relief swam through her, dissolving some of the pain. Shuddering, she took a deep breath, trying to control the churning in her stomach. Then she opened her eyes.

Gabriel’s face was white, his forehead beaded with sweat. His hands were clenched around his thigh, and blood seeped slowly between his fingers.

The best way to stop a shapechanger was to wing him with silver, Jack had once told her. Then they were useless in either form.

“I’ve decided I don’t need the disks enough to cart you around with me, Stern. You’re a little too dangerous to warrant the effort.” There was no humanity left in Jack’s eyes now. The vampire had risen fully to the surface. “I’d love to stay and watch you bleed to death, but time is against me. Up, Sam.”