by John Whitman
But before he could, something covered his mouth and nose. He inhaled sharp, eye-watering fumes, and everything went black.
10:14 P.M. PST Desert Outside Lancaster
Jack’s head shook clear when he hit the ground. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been totally out. He’d been groggy for the last few minutes, lying in the back of Dog’s truck with his hands and feet bound with what felt like duct tape and a tarp thrown over his head. He was going to have a massive headache and a good-sized lump on his head, assuming he survived this.
Jack was vaguely aware that the truck had pulled off the road somewhere and was bumping along the pathless high desert. Eventually, the truck had stopped. The tarp disappeared, and Jack had felt himself lifted and then dropped. That’s when the impact shook his head clear.
It was pitch-black. They were far from Lancaster’s faint glow of lights, somewhere out in the desert off the Pearblossom Highway that ran south and east. There wasn’t enough starlight or moonlight for Jack to make out Dog’s face clearly, but he could see the hulking shape crouched down in front of him.
“So we don’t misunderstand each other,” Dog said out of the gloom, “you wouldn’t be the first cop I killed.”
Jack didn’t say anything. Dog grunted and continued. “It was a good one, the bike thing. I do like Ducati. But I’m not dumb, just country dumb, and don’t nobody start talkin’ about blowing things up in a bar.”
Jack allowed himself some silent absolution. He hadn’t had much time to lay out and execute a longer, slower, less obvious sting. This was still a failure, but the risks had been unavoidable.
“I figure it’s Farrigian sold me out,” Dog said. He grabbed Jack by the throat. “Was it Farrigian? You tell me who it was and I’ll end you quick.”
Jack fought the natural panic of suffocation and stared into the shadows where Dog’s eyes would be. He wasn’t going to give this two-bit scum the satisfaction of seeing him struggle. After a second, the big man let go. Jack willed himself to breathe in slowly, easily. He didn’t gasp.
“Tough sumbitch.” Dog laughed.
“You should just let me go now,” Jack said when his lungs stopped burning.
Dog laughed. “What, you think I’m a moron?”
Jack heard the faint whup-whup of the helicopter first. “Yes,” he said, “I think you’re a moron.”
Spotlights ignited like a half-dozen suns leaping into the sky all around them. A voice blared over an unseen bullhorn. “This is the police! You are under arrest! This is the police!”
Dog whirled, blinded by the light and stunned by the noise. “Get down, get down, get down!” a voice shouted, and footsteps thudded toward them out of the darkness.
The hairy giant threw a hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding light as he reached under his shirt. His arm swung up, holding a huge revolver.
Jack never heard the shots, but he saw Dog’s body shudder three times as three red flowers blossomed across his back. One of the sniper rounds hit the ground near Jack’s leg with a soft puffing sound, like someone punching a pillow, and grains of dirt sprayed into Jack’s face. Dog’s body hit the ground before the SWAT team could reach him.
The next moment or two were controlled chaos as the SWAT team swarmed Jack to protect him and secured the area. Some of the spotlights were dimmed and cars were rolled up. The police helicopter continued to circle overhead for a few minutes, its powerful beam sliding around the scene. Finally someone spoke into a microphone, and the chopper dropped away loudly.
“You good?” Harry Driscoll said as Jack was freed
and hauled to his feet.
“Yeah. I wish you hadn’t shot him.”
Driscoll nodded. “Me, too, but he was waving a
gun at our badges.”
Jack looked at Dog, still lying where he’d fallen. “I get it, I just wish I could ask another question or two. But I think I got what we needed. You know anything about a guy named Farrigian?”
Driscoll had driven Jack’s car, and they walked to it now as the detective called in any information on that last name. By the time Jack was behind the wheel, he knew that Farrigian was an importer with a history of minor scrapes with customs. He’d also been brought up on charges of possession of illegal weapons, but the charge had been thrown out on a technicality. He was on a number of Federal, state, and local watch lists, but he was considered small-time.
Jack stuck his hand out the window. “Thanks, Harry. I owe you.”
Driscoll shook his hand. “Bet your ass. And I’m collecting now. Keep me up on this. I want to stay in the loop.”
“What, you don’t have enough work?”
Driscoll checked his watch. “If you’re right about your shit, then something’s going down in less than a day. I don’t want terrorist crap in my town. You keep me involved.” He smacked the side of the car.
Jack pulled off the dirt field and onto the highway. Driscoll was a good man. If CTU could get him, or people like him, they’d be okay.
As he drove, Jack picked up his phone and called Christopher Henderson. “You’re still there, right?” he asked when Henderson answered.
Henderson didn’t sound happy. “What do you think? I’ve been on the phone with the State Department for the last forty minutes. Jesus, you think we’ve got bureaucracy!”
“I’ve got something,” Jack said bluntly. “Not much, but I’m on the trail.” He told Henderson about the meeting with Gelson and the encounter with Dog Smithies.
“I’m following this plastic explosives back to its source. I’m going to figure out who has the rest of it.”
“Hold on, I’m going to conference in Chappelle.” Jack waited on hold, then heard several beeps, then Henderson’s voice again. “Jack, you there? Chappelle?”
“Present,” Chappelle said unhappily. “You know what time it is, right?”
“Justice never sleeps,” Henderson quipped. “Jack has an update.”
For the second time, Bauer explained what he’d been up to for the last two hours. Chappelle was quiet, except for the occasional resentful grunt. When Jack was done, all his questions were cynical.
“You’re assuming it’s the same set of plastic explosives?”
“For now. I’ll know for sure once I get to Farrigian.”
“Your theory is that this Farrigian sold some of the plastic explosives to this biker and some to the terrorists. You think if we find the seller we’ll be able to track it back to the terrorists?”
“Yes.”
“But what if Abu Mousa, the guy we have in custody, was the buyer?”
Jack shook his head at the phone. “I don’t see Mousa as the brains. They were storage and fall guys.”
“Probably right,” Chappelle agreed reluctantly. “But I still don’t see the urgency. Even if Ramin was right about some plan for tomorrow, we’ve stopped it. We have the plastic explosives. If you’re worried about some missing bricks, then you just answered your own question with this biker. He got the rest.”
Jack shrugged. “You may be right,” he conceded. “I just want to make sure.”
There was silence, except for the faint white noise of the cellular transmissions. Jack knew that Chappelle was trying to decide whether to give his authorization for this. Of course, neither one of them was sure what the District Director could do to stop him. Chappelle could help him by endorsing him, but could not hurt him directly. If Jack, acting as a CIA operative, was going to get in trouble for operating domestically, he’d get called to the carpet by the CIA’s Director of Operations, not by Chappelle.
In the end, Chappelle made the decision worthy of a government employee at any level. “I don’t want to know about this,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a CTU case and CTU personnel are working on it.” He hung up.
Christopher Henderson said, “That’s as close to approval as you’re going to get.”
“I wasn’t looking for approval,” Jack replied as he turned south on the 405 Fr
eeway.
“Come into the office. We’ll plan a move on Farrigian from here. It’ll make Chappelle feel better.”
“On my way.”
10:31 P.M. PST Baldwin Hills, California
There were oil wells in Los Angeles. You could see them when driving down La Cienega Boulevard toward the airport. Where the street passed between the shoulders of two hills, on the west side you could see the pumps, like metallic dinosaurs bobbing their heads up and down. Nearby was the growing suburb of Baldwin Hills, but the oil wells were surrounded by undeveloped land and the expanse of Baldwin Park. Plus the pumps themselves emitted a continuous dull groan.
So there was no one to hear Don Biehn scream.
His captor had rolled the tire of his car over Biehn’s handcuffed hands, crushing them and pinning him face-up on the ground. Biehn’s legs were strapped together with something he couldn’t see, and tied off to the metal base of one of the great pumps, which nodded its giant hood over him as he stared up at the dark sky.
Biehn didn’t know who had kidnapped him, or why. The man hadn’t even asked him questions yet. Biehn had woken from his drug-induced stupor (chloroform?) to find his fingers already crushed under the car. He’d played possum for a few minutes while his captor stood a few feet away, whispering into a cell phone. Biehn heard very little of the conversation, but what he heard was startling. If he could survive this, he might be able to use that conversation to avoid prison or the gas chamber.
The captor, not quite visible in the gloom, had hung up his phone. He knelt down beside Biehn and slapped him to wake him. Then he cut Biehn’s shirt away and carved a bloody line down his chest, causing Biehn to scream despite himself.
Now his captor came close. There was a dim light somewhere nearby on one of the pumps. In the very faint light, Biehn saw a gleaming bald head and a handsome, clean-shaven face staring down at him.
“That is to let you know I am serious,” said his captor, holding up his knife. “Don’t make me show you how truly, truly serious I am.”
Biehn said nothing. What the hell was going on? Was this guy with the church?
The man held up Biehn’s badge. “Were you there
to arrest Father Collins?”
“Yes,” Don lied.
The captor cut away a sickle-shaped piece of skin below Biehn’s left nipple.
“No,” he said calmly as Biehn sobbed. “Police officers do not sneak around the backs of houses to break and enter. They do not come alone, either. Don’t lie to me again.”
This time, Biehn had not screamed, but the cut hurt like hell. He blinked away tears of pain. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.
The man cut him again. Biehn thrashed in his confinement, feeling his fingers tear and nearly break under the weight of the car tire.
“I see that you want to ask questions, too,” the man said. “Well, I’m not unreasonable. I will let you ask questions. But your questions will come at a cost. Every time you ask one, I will cut a piece from you. Now, do you want to ask something?”
“Do you work for the church?” Biehn asked.
“Yes,” the man said. “You can call me Michael.”
Biehn spat into his face.
The man cut a thin fillet, just below the epidermis on Biehn’s left side. Biehn cried out and thrashed again. He felt two of his fingers dislocate. But he also felt them start to wiggle in the space he’d created.
“Now it’s my turn,” Michael said. “What did you want with Father Collins?”
“To kill him.”
“Why?”
“Because he deserves to die.”
That answer seemed to strike Michael as curious. He started again. “What do you know of the plan?”
“What plan?”
“That was a question,” Michael said. He gouged a piece from Biehn’s right side. Blood trickled from both sides of his body down into the mud. “What do you know of the plan?” Michael asked again.
Biehn didn’t know how many more cuts he could take. He was losing blood, and the pain was excruci
ating. “I don’t know about any plan.”
“I will make deeper cuts for lying.”
“I really don’t!” Biehn sobbed. “I have my reasons
for killing that piece of shit!’
“What reasons are those?” Michael asked.
“Fuck you.”
“Who are you working for?”
“Nobody!”
Another cut, not deep, but in the sensitive area of
the armpit. Biehn thrashed again, felt another finger dislocate, and this time his arms came free. Michael looked genuinely startled when Biehn sat up. Gripping his two battered hands into a club, Biehn smashed Michael across the jaw, and the torturer crumpled sideways. Biehn snatched up the knife and cut the leather strap—a belt, it seemed to be— from around his ankles. Michael stirred, and Biehn turned to stab him. But his feet were cramped and asleep, and his hands were too battered to hold the knife well. Michael slapped the blade from his grip. Biehn clutched at Michael’s shirt with his handcuffed hands and headbutted him in the face. His position was weak and the strike wasn’t strong, but it was enough to stun Michael again. Biehn stood up, his legs feeling like dead wood beneath him. He wanted to stay and fight, but he was weak from pain and blood loss. He ran into the darkness.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 P.M. AND 12 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
11:00 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Jack walked into CTU’s shell of a headquarters looking like a dog’s chew toy. His hair was tousled, and his clothes and face were covered with dust. His wrists were still sticky from the duct tape. But his eyes were on fire, and he was all business as he walked through the office toward the bare meeting room. He passed a woman sitting impatiently in a chair. He recognized her as the same thin, pretty woman he’d passed earlier in the evening. She seemed eager to talk with anyone who would pay attention to her, but Jack hurried past her into the room where Christopher Henderson waited. Nina Myers was there, too. The analyst Jamey Farrell was also present, as were a few others Jack hadn’t met.
“Everyone’s up to speed?” Jack asked.
“You want to clean up first?” Henderson offered.
Jack waved him off. “Do we have a list of likely targets?”
Jamey Farrell spoke up, but she spoke to Henderson out of deference to his position. “Yeah, but it’s so long it’s not usable.” She passed around packets of paper. “Sorry, our monitor isn’t hooked up to the network yet. These will have to do. Look at the first six pages.” They did, and saw a long list of Los Angeles landmarks. Jack frowned. With the exception of a few financial institutions, he could have found the same list in any Los Angeles guidebook.
“We have to narrow this down,” he said.
Henderson observed, “Our working assumption is that the weapon is plastic explosives. If that’s the case, they can’t have much of it. Even if they have twice as much as we’ve already uncovered (and that’s next to impossible), they still don’t have huge amounts.”
“Which means their target is specific,” Jack added. “Something small.”
Nina Myers made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. “That doesn’t fit their MO.” She sat down, leaning back in one of the brand-new chairs. “I mean, our theory is that this is Yasin, right? One of the Blind Sheik’s guys? Maybe even al-Qaeda. You all know al-Qaeda, right?”
Jack did. Al-Qaeda was an Arabic phrase that literally meant “the base.” It was the catchphrase for a network of Islamic fundamentalists with very anti-Western, anti-American sentiments. The loose network had gotten its start during the Russian war in Afghanistan. In 1991, al-Qaeda turned its anger on the United States when that country dared to maintain its troops in Saudi Arabia, the land of the two mosques, Medina and Mecca. Al-Qaeda had bombed an embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing a number of America
ns. One of the primary terrorists in the 1993 World Trade Center bomb attack was Ramzi Yousef, a known associate of al-Qaeda. Although the al-Qaeda name hadn’t gotten much play in the media yet, operators in intelligence circles were already talking about them as the next big threat.
Nina continued. “They don’t seem to pick small targets. They go after headlines. Embassies. The World Trade Center.”
Jack studied the list while she spoke. “Always the big-ticket items?”
Nina considered. “The Blind Sheik was implicated in the death of Meir Kahane, the ultra-rightist Israeli rabbi. But if it’s just an assassination, why use plastic explosives?”
Henderson added, “And if they want an explosion, they’ve already proven they can make homemade explosives.”
Jack knew what they were thinking, what they were trying to tell him through the facts. This wasn’t adding up. All of them were trained investigators, accustomed to uncovering facts that began to form a pattern. There didn’t seem to be a pattern here.
“Here’s what we know for certain,” he said, returning to the beginning. He picked up the laser pointer, but the monitor was as dead now as it had been before.
“Sorry,” Henderson apologized.
Jack snatched up a pen, flipped over one of the packets Jamey had provided, and started scribbling a flowchart. “One: Israeli agents contacted the CIA a while ago with intelligence that some known terrorists were planning an attack in the United States. After tracking down leads in Cairo, I was given the name of Ramin, who I knew had been distantly associated with the Blind Sheik. When I tried to question him, someone blew him up. But he did say that Yasin, another WTC bomber, was involved, and that he was planning an event for tomorrow night.
“Two: you guys uncover some Muslims in Los Angeles who are hiding plastic explosives under their bed. Some if it is missing.
“Three: a washed-up actor apparently gave money to some low-level troublemakers to buy plastic explosives from an arms dealer who got his hands on some.”
Nina Myers rubbed her temples. “There’s enough here to tell us something is going on, but not enough to know what.”