Memory Zero (Spook Squad 1)
“The tests. We both know they’re not just psych and psychic evaluations. You’ve run the whole gamut, right down to biological. Why?”
“I told you—we want to know why you were able to see the kites.”
“But it’s more than that now.”
He nodded. “When Finley ran the original tests, we found a few interesting anomalies. For a start, you registered neutral in the psychic tests, and that can only mean you have a talent strong enough to avoid detection, yet still be able to work in the presence of the psychic deadeners.”
She raised an eyebrow but offered no comment, simply tapped a finger lightly against the tabletop as she waited for him to go on.
“Finley also discovered an unknown chromosome in your cell sample. As of yet, we haven’t been able to track it down.” He didn’t mention her developmental immaturity. It would be something she’d surely be aware of.
She frowned. “How can I have an unknown chromosome?”
“We don’t know. That’s why we’re running extra tests.”
She fell silent for a long minute, and then lowered her gaze to the table. “What’s the favor you want of me?”
He hesitated as the door opened. Han came into the room, carrying a tray full of bread, meats and rice. “Best I could do in a hurry,” he said, putting the tray on the table.
“Thanks, Han.”
The big man nodded. “I shall keep a watch out for you.”
“Thanks.” He waited until Han had left, then reached out and grabbed a thick slab of bread. “A friend of mine is being poisoned.” That the friend was also his twin was a fact she didn’t need to know. “Only a very few people, myself included, have access to him.”
She helped herself to a plate of the thick-sliced lamb and aromatic rice. “How is the poison being administered?”
“Through the water.”
“If it’s being administered by water, it could be anyone.”
Gabriel shook his head. “He doesn’t drink tap water, and the bottled water is fully tested before he goes near it.”
“Your friend must be very important for such measures to be taken.”
“He is.” He was the only brother Gabriel had left.
Sam frowned, tilting her head slightly to one side, her expression thoughtful. “How can I help, then?”
“I think I’m too close. I’ve known these people all my life. I don’t know if I can be clinical enough to choose the killer amongst them.”
“And you want me to be your fresh set of eyes?”
He nodded. “You’re a police officer as well as an outsider. You might see what I don’t.”
“That’s a hell of a gamble on my integrity. How do you know I won’t pick someone randomly and be done with it?”
Good question. And the truth was, there was no good answer to it. Nothing except instinct and something deep inside that said he had to trust her. “How do you know I won’t shoot Kazdan on sight and save the state the costs of a trial?”
She blinked in surprise. “Jack’s done nothing illegal.”
Yeah, right. Maybe she didn’t consider trying to kill her—via a clone—illegal, but he sure as hell did. And that was only the tip of it. “Kazdan’s a commander in an underground organization run by a man known only as Sethanon.” And had been for as long as he and Sam had been partners—a fact that very much suggested he’d been placed on her. The question was, why?
She paled a little. “What sort of organization?”
“An organization that believes humans have no right to be running the world when they are not the superior race.”
“Jack said a war was about to begin.”