24 Declassified: 09 - Trinity

by John Whitman

  “Yeah.”

  “This case just won’t die, will it?” she asked.

  “Medical records?”

  “He checked into Cedars-Sinai a month ago after a car wreck. I have all the records from that surgery online.”

  Jack thanked her and hung up. He was aware that Harry Driscoll and Dr. Siegman were staring at him,

  284

  but he ignored them. He had to think, and his insights were coming few and far between. He wished he’d had at least a few minutes of sleep when he’d been home—not for his own comfort, but so that his brain would have had time to reset. Maybe it’d be working better now.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “This is what we have to go on. There is roughly ten pounds of plastic explosives out in the open. Some fraction of that is here, in Father Collins’s arm. The rest isn’t enough to do any huge damage to any buildings or important structures, so we can rule out that sort of terrorist attack.

  “Father Collins apparently had no motive to murder anyone, and was working toward becoming the next Mother Teresa. But we know that’s not true because he stuck a bomb in his arm. I’m going back to the office to start working on this.”

  “Mr. Bauer?” Dr. Siegman said, holding up the tiny electronic device. “This might interest you. You should take it and have it double-checked, because I might be wrong about this thing.”

  “It’s not a receiver?”

  “Oh, it’s definitely a receiver. But unless I’m mistake, there’s also a little timer built into it. A kind of fail-safe, maybe.”

  “A timer.”

  “Set to go off at five-thirty today.”

  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 12 P.M. AND 1 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  12:00 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

  Rabbi Dan Bender had to admit that he was enjoying himself. It had been years since he’d attended a truly splendid party, and the reception that preceded the official start of the Unity Conference was nothing if not splendid. Clerics and holy men from a number of religions were in attendance—not just rabbis, imams, and Christian clergy, but also a few Sikhs, Hindus, and Buddhists. The Dalai Lama had been invited, but was unable to attend due to illness.

  Although he tried not to appear obvious about it, he searched the crowd for Father Collins. He didn’t like the man, but for reasons obvious to himself, Bender felt it very important to know the man’s whereabouts.

  286

  He could not find Collins, which concerned him very much. But he did spot Abdul al-Hassan who, quite out of character, was standing by himself near a tall indoor plant in a large pot. Bender sidled over to him. “I’ve never known you to avoid a crowd, Abdul, at least not when you thought you could turn it into an audience.”

  Abdul turned on him sharply, and for the briefest of moments, Bender thought he saw real hatred in the Muslim’s eyes. But the emotion, whatever it was, vanished in a flicker. “Well, I suppose I am just trying to hold back,” he said quietly. “This is the Christians’ affair, after all. It would not be good to step on toes.”

  Bender laughed. “What, haven’t you read the brochure? This event is for all of us.”

  “It is a political stunt for the leader of the Crusaders to appear to be the leader of us all,” al-Hassan said simply.

  Bender hesitated. “Are you in an especially bad mood, Abdul?”

  Marwan hesitated. He knew his brother shared that view—he’d heard him speak against the paternalistic approach taken by the Christian Pope. Had he said something wrong? “No, why?”

  Bender shrugged. “There’s an edge in your voice. I hope everything is all right.” “Fine,” Marwan said, thinking of what was to come. “I am absolutely fine.”

  12:06 P.M. PST Mid-Wilshire Area, Los Angeles

  Go back to the beginning.

  Jack remembered hearing that somewhere, though he couldn’t recall where. The truth is that he had been picking up his investigative skills in a sort of on-the-job training program. His training with LAPD SWAT, and in Delta, and with the CIA, had much more to do with field operations than mystery solving. But someone somewhere had once told him that when the clues start slipping out of your mental grip, go back to the beginning.

  “What’s the earliest event?” he said aloud, alone in his car. Driscoll was trailing him. “If we count it, there’s the airline bombing that Diana Christie was working on. No,” he corrected, “there’s the timeline Farouk gave me. The purchase of C–4 out of Cairo and its shipment to the U.S. When was that?

  “Six weeks ago, he said,” Jack answered himself. “Then the airline accident or bombing, whichever it is. Four weeks ago. Yasin arrives in Los Angeles four days ago. I question Ramin yesterday, and the house blows up.”

  Jack was still reciting the timeline of events as he pulled his car up to CTU’s nondescript building and walked inside. He caught the attention of Nina Myers, Jamey Farrell, and Christopher Henderson and motioned them toward the conference room. They followed, and he began to repeat his timeline so far, this time writing it on a whiteboard in the almost-bare room.

  Jamey Farrell shook her head. “You missed something. Nina arrested the Sweetzer Three. That was

  288

  two days ago. One day before you went to Ramin’s house.” Jack nodded and crammed that onto the whiteboard above Ramin.

  “Well, that’s a thing to think about,” Christopher Henderson mused. “Yasin—assuming it’s Yasin we’re talking about here—didn’t care at all about the three Muslims we captured with a load of plastic explosives. But the minute you questioned Ramin, he blew the place up.”

  “Maybe he couldn’t get to them when they were arrested,” Nina suggested.

  Jack saw where he was headed. “Could be. But he was ready and waiting for Ramin. That bomb was planted long before we got there. Not these three, though. Why not?”

  “They’re too important to kill?” Henderson proposed.

  But Nina was headed in the other direction. “No. They weren’t important enough.” Her eyes met Jack’s, and both realized the other was thinking the same thing.

  “They don’t know anything,” Jack said first. “They were meant to live, so we would waste time on them. They were the first decoy, just in case we were on the trail of the C–4.”

  “So the airplane, then,” Nina wondered. “Where does that fit in? If Christie was right, then they blew it up. Why?”

  “Something about Ali, the guy in the seat,” Jack said. “You did a thorough background on him?” Nina crossed her heart. “Trust me. Nothing in his past. Squeaky clean.” “Like Collins,” Jack said. He paused, then said,

  “Forget his past. What was his future? Where was he going?”

  Jamey Farrell blushed. “I never looked for that. Give me a minute.” She hurried out of the room.

  12:15 P.M. PST En Route from St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

  Michael rode shotgun in the Cardinal’s car, but his mind had leaped five miles and more than an hour ahead.

  Almost, he thought. Almost there.

  After so much work, only a short time to wait, and then the heresy of Vatican II would be eradicated.

  12:16 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jamey Farrell reentered the conference room with a look of pure embarrassment on her face. “It was there all the time,” she said meekly. “If only I’d thought to look.”

  “What is it?” Jack said, although he thought he already knew.

  “Abdul Ali was arriving in Los Angeles to attend several meetings. The most important one was the Unity Conference. He was scheduled to meet with the Pope.”

  290

  12:18 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

  Giancarlo swept the reception hall as he planned to do several times in the next hour or more prior to the arrival of the Holy Father. Every precaution had been taken, of course, but he did not feel right unless
he had personally walked every inch of the area. In order to better mingle with the crowd of eighty or ninety clerics in the hall, he was dressed in the black robes of a priest, and, if necessary, he could speak eloquently on various theological topics. But at this moment he avoided all conversation, simply smiling and tipping his head to anyone who made eye contact with him.

  Another “priest”—actually one of his Swiss Guards in a similar disguise—approached him and said quietly in Italian, “There is a telephone call for you. It may be urgent.”

  Giancarlo bowed and turned, gliding out of the room. In the hallway outside, he opened a nondescript door that led to a separate room filled with video monitors. In this room, there was no attempt to hide security. Four men in body armor and wearing automatic weapons slung over their shoulders waited with professional patience, while three others watched the video screens intently.

  One of them handed a headset to Giancarlo. He slipped it over his head and said in English, “This is the Chief of Security, may I help you?”

  “This is Federal agent Jack Bauer,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I’m concerned that there may be an attempt on the life of the Pope.”

  12:25 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jack admired calm, and the man on the other end of the line sounded almost serene. “I see,” he said. “I am aware that my people have already vetted this call, but can you tell me what agency you’re with?”

  “Well,” Jack said, almost smiling at the complex answer to such a simple question, “I am in a special capacity with the State Department.”

  “You are CIA,” the man, Giancarlo, interpreted.

  “I’m currently working with a special counterterrorism unit on a domestic case. It’s led us to believe that there may be a plot for suicide bombers to assassinate the Pope.”

  Giancarlo allowed himself the faintest flicker of a smile. “Be assured, sir, there is no way for a suicide bomber to get anywhere near His Holiness.”

  In the most straightforward way that he could, Jack described the hunt for the C–4, the horrific discovery of the bomb planted inside Father Collins.

  As Jack ended his story, the security man seemed nonplussed. “That is startling,” he said without inflection, “but I don’t understand. You say that you have found the C–4, and that you have stopped this suicidal priest. Do you think the Holy Father’s life is still in danger?”

  Jack explained their theory about Abdul Ali. “We’re not sure if we’re right about Ali. And if we’re right, we’re not even sure if the priest was a replacement for Ali, or if they were both supposed to be there. But I thought you should know.”

  Giancarlo said, “Thank you. I will inform His Holiness, but I fear that without solid proof, he will

  292

  not cancel this conference. He has committed himself to see it to the end.” Jack sighed. “Let’s just hope the end doesn’t come too soon.”

  12:30 P.M. PST Santa Monica Boulevard

  Gary Khalid’s hands still shook, but he was starting to feel better. He had one more hurdle to clear—an enormous hurdle, to be sure, but only one. He had to stop by his hiding place. He had decided to leave Los Angeles for good, but first he had to pick up his secret travel bag with cash and identification that would carry him through this crisis. He was smart enough not to hide the bag in his own home (but, he thought wryly, not smart enough to keep the travel bag with him at all times). The bag was, in fact, in the last place anyone would look for him.

  Maybe they aren’t looking for me yet, he thought. But even so, that was the best time to run. He would go to Venezuela, where he would be out of reach of the U.S. authorities. From Venezuela, he could make his way back to Pakistan, and from there to the Northern Provinces, or maybe to Afghanistan, where the Taliban were building a truly Muslim community.

  But first he had to get that bag.

  12:33 P.M. PST Beverly Hills, California

  Nina had volunteered to track down the doctor who’d done surgery on Father Collins. She felt the need to pursue this most morbid aspect of the case, having watched Diana Christie blow up. Nina was not a big fan of emotion, and she would have slapped anyone who suggested she needed a good cry, but she suspected there would be some sort of catharsis in confronting the actual procedure.

  David Silver was the surgeon of record who had repaired Collins’s broken arm. A few phone calls had located him at his Beverly Hills office, on Camden Drive just north of Wilshire. Inside the office, she leaned over the counter where the receptionist sat, and surreptitiously showed her identification. “It’s urgent, I’m afraid,” she said softly but firmly.

  “We’re already backed up by forty-five minutes,” the receptionist pleaded.

  “Let’s round it out to an hour,” Nina replied, and pushed through the door to the back offices. The receptionist, flustered, guided her to Dr. Silver’s office, where she sat. The doctor himself appeared a moment later. He was young, with dark brown hair. He was also about five foot two, and he was already forming a helicopter pad on the top. He had a habit of making a wet, sucking sound at the corners of his mouth every few breaths. A catch on paper, Nina thought, but in real life, he was catch and release.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, looking more than a little concerned.

  Nina introduced herself and then dove right in. “I am interested in a patient of yours from several weeks

  294

  ago. Samuel Collins, a priest, who had a broken arm that you set.” Nina’s voice was casual and her posture relaxed, but her right hand never strayed far from the Glock 17 at her hip under her jacket.

  Dr. Silver chewed his lip. “A priest? Collins . . . that doesn’t ring a bell.” He pressed the intercom. Nina tensed. If there was going to be trouble, it would happen now. “Marianna, can you look up records for a Samuel Collins? Broken arm.”

  He looked up. “I usually remember all my patients. Certainly recent ones, and I think I’d remember a priest, but . . .”

  The buzzer sounded. “Dr. Silver, did you say Collins? I don’t have a Sam Collins anywhere. We don’t have a patient with that name.”

  “Thank you.” He looked at Nina. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what to say.”

  Nina’s bullshit meter wasn’t going off. This guy didn’t feel like a con man, and there was nothing about his operation that raised red flags. But she wasn’t giving up yet. “Cedars-Sinai’s records indicate that Collins had surgery at that hospital almost four weeks ago, on Tuesday the twelfth. You are listed as the surgeon. Can you tell me where you were that day?”

  Silver looked shocked. “Am I in trouble?”

  “That depends on where you were.”

  Silver’s eyes went up and to the left, which told Nina he was accessing some visually remembered memory. “The twelfth? I could check my calendar and—oh! The twelfth. That’s easy. I was at my place in Jackson Hole. We were there all week.”

  Now it was Nina’s turn to look perplexed. “You can prove this? Are there witnesses?”

  Silver said, “Yeah. My wife, my twin daughters, the caretaker who watches the place when we’re not around, Hank the fly fishing instructor . . .”

  “I get it,” Nina said, standing up. “Thanks for your time.”

  12:40 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jack was still pacing back and forth, deciding that he had to go over to that Unity Conference himself, when Nina called back.

  “You can forget Dr. Silver. He wasn’t even in town when this operation is said to have happened. He has a ton of witnesses.”

  “We have to run them down, though,” Jack said into the phone.

  “Trust me,” she answered. “This is a nerdy Jewish doctor in Beverly Hills. He’s not blowing up anyone.”

  Jack put her on speakerphone and addressed Jamey and Christopher Henderson. “So now we’re saying someone doctored his records and basically faked an operation. A conspiracy can only go so wide before leaks start happening, and th
e only leak we’ve ever found here is back in Cairo, and then Ramin. Everyone else has stayed pretty quiet. Are we now saying there’s a doctor out there who has something against the Pope, did these operations, faked records, and has flown under our radar?”

  “This case is getting weirder,” Henderson said.

  No one spoke for a minute, until Harry Driscoll cleared his throat. He’d been there the whole time,

  296

  but he’d faded into the background, whether out of fatigue or frustration, Jack didn’t know. “Who says it has to be a doctor? I mean, a real doctor? Collins wasn’t planning on staying alive, right? So if the operation wasn’t perfect, who cares?”

  “That doesn’t help much, though,” Nina said over the phone. “It widens our pool, it doesn’t narrow—”

  “Start with the suspects we have,” Driscoll suggested. “Could one of them have done it?” Jack shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Jamey, can you—” “Already doing it.” She had dragged a laptop into the conference room. Henderson frowned. “No wireless networks are allowed in here.”

  Jamey shrugged. “With all respect, I will absolutely follow that rule when you get more than two working computers in here. In the meantime . . . hmm.”

  “Something?” Jack asked.

  “Well. Yeah.” She looked up. “I just ran Nina’s original list of suspects against any information on medical school, medicine, etcetera. You know who graduated from medical school before moving here?”

  “Who?”

  “Gary Khalid.”

  12:48 P.M. PST Sweetzer Avenue, Los Angeles

  Gary Khalid drove up the street in a borrowed car, but he didn’t see anything unusual. If someone was watching the house, their countersurveillance skills were much better than his meager talents. It couldn’t be helped. He had to get inside his house. He cruised his neighborhood several more times, searching for he knew not what.

  Though he gave the appearance of an affable, simple man, Khalid was highly intelligent. At a certain point, he realized that he was being foolish. The way the Americans worked, if they had figured out his involvement in the affair, they would have ransacked his house by now. And if they were lying in ambush, they would have pounced on him long before now.