24 Declassified: 09 - Trinity

by John Whitman

  Still, he pulled his car to the end of the block and waited. He had waited many long years to strike a blow against the Zionists and Crusaders. He could wait another hour.

  12:57 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jack finished reviewing the records on Khalid’s education in Pakistan. Like so many clues, they had been right in front of him, but they’d meant nothing until he knew what to look for.

  Khalid had not only finished medical school in Islamabad, he had practiced as a surgeon and served as a doctor in the army.

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  “Last night this was in his favor,” Jack said to no one in particular. “Educated, capable. Didn’t fit the profile of a terrorist. Now it puts him right back in our sights.”

  He looked at Christopher Henderson. “Do you know what all this tells me?”

  Henderson shook his head.

  “It tells me we’re not ready for this,” Jack admitted. “It tells me these guys can come here and make us chase our own tails and do whatever they want. We’d better catch up.”

  Henderson noted with a slight smile that Jack now said we, but he said nothing.

  Jamey Farrell hung up a telephone. “LAPD sent a car to Khalid’s residence for us. No one’s home. They searched, didn’t find anything unusual. He may have already run out on us.”

  “I would if I were him,” Jack said. “He must have cut Diana Christie up pretty quickly and horribly to turn her into a bomb. He probably panicked.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not out of the country yet.”

  “Mexico’s only a couple hours away.”

  “But he wasn’t ready for it,” she pointed out. “I mean, how could he be? This thing with Diana Christie had to be last-minute, because you didn’t even know she’d come along until last night. So she went to that meeting and they ambushed her, did . . . whatever”—Jamey shuddered—“and then sent her off. So maybe after that, Khalid decides it’s time to get out of town.”

  “If I were him, I’d just get in the car and go,” Jack said. “But he’s not you. He’s a guy who’s been inter

  viewed at bunch of times and passed with flying colors. He probably feels like he’s safe.”

  Jack was impressed. “You should do fieldwork,” he said.

  “Nah, I’m not a big fan of getting shot at,” she said.

  Jack phoned Nina Myers, who was en route, and filled her in. “But he’s not home,” Jack said finally. “So if you have any ideas . . .”

  “I do,” Nina said. “Unless you need me at the conference, I’ll go get Khalid.”

  “Who said I’m going to the conference?” Jack replied.

  Nina just laughed, and hung up.

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  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 1 P.M. AND 2 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  1:00 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  “You really think there’s still a threat?” Driscoll asked. “I mean, didn’t we stop the guy?”

  “The missing C–4,” Jack said by way of explanation. “And the fact this whole damned thing is never-ending, and I can’t seem to get my hands around it. It’s like these guys make a religion out of being devious.”

  “Yeah, instead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we got the bomber, the stooge, and the plastic explosives.”

  It was a bad pun, and Driscoll would have forgotten he’d even said it except that Jack suddenly stopped, his eyes growing distant. “Threes,” Jack said. His eyes focused again, and he looked at Driscoll in astonishment. “Ramin said that. That Yasin would do things in threes. There are going to be three attackers and we’ve only got one.”

  “How can you be sure?” the detective asked.

  “I’m not,” Jack said, suddenly animated. “But I bet if you check with Dr. Siegman, she’ll say that there was just about enough missing C–4 to create two more bombs like the one in Collins’s arm. Three bombers. And there’ve been three areas to investigate: the bikers, the Sweetzer Three”—saying the word itself was almost like the click of a puzzle piece—“and the Unity Conference.”

  “Don’t forget the child molestation thing.”

  Jack shivered—it was not forgettable. “But that wasn’t one of Yasin’s plans. In fact, that’s where it all started to go wrong for them,” he pointed out. “Think about it, Harry. Where would we be if Don Biehn hadn’t come along? I’d have stopped a two-bit biker thug, and maybe I’d have followed that lead to Castaic Dam. CTU would have kept the Sweetzer Three on ice, and figured they’d bagged all the C–4. We’d be sitting on our butts right now while Collins was getting ready to blow himself up. We need to get over there.”

  1:05 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

  Michael said the Ave Maria to himself in Latin, the only way that it should be said, as he followed Cardinal Mulrooney through the reception at a polite distance. He glanced at his watch. The Cardinal

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  had to leave soon of his own accord. If not, Michael would make him leave.

  In Michael’s mind, Mulrooney ought to be in line for the papacy. Not because he was an especially moral man, but because he, like Michael, could see the false path down which the church had traveled these past forty years. They were few and far between in the church. Michael had to admit that. But Jesus had only a few followers when he started to spread the word. The true word of God could not be contained. By the will of the Lord, Michael would strike a blow against the heretics. There were several among the cardinals who were secret leaders of the schismatic movement. Several of them stood a decent chance of becoming Pope after John Paul was blown to hell.

  It hadn’t been easy, that first meeting with Yasin. In another time and place, Michael would have killed the man and rejoiced at it. But Yasin had come to him with evidence of the church’s secret sin—the unwholesome appetites of some of its priests, who preyed on the children in their care. Michael knew of it, of course. He was in charge of security, and more than once he had acted as the intimidating presence in the background while a kindly priest convinced a child or a parent to keep quiet and allow the incident to drift into the past. The priests, meanwhile, were always moved to a new diocese to avoid any further unpleasantness.

  Somehow, Yasin had known of this. Maybe a guilty priest had confessed, or an abused child had found his way to him. Michael didn’t know, and never would. But Yasin had shown him several letters, and video footage that a priest had taken of one of the . . . incidents. The evidence was damning.

  Even so, Michael would never have let himself or the church be blackmailed, until he realized what Yasin was proposing: the assassination of Pope John Paul II. And, better yet, an assassination that Michael could blame on the Muslims, who were more than willing to take credit for it. For Michael, it was a wondrous triptych: the death of the heretical Pope; the awakening of Christians to the threat of Islam; and the ability to escape unsuspected. All he had to do was agree to work with Yasin.

  It had seemed easy, all those months ago. And, in fact, it had all gone smoothly until just a few days ago. Yasin had warned them that the Federal government might track the crate of C–4, so they had created a red herring with three fundamentalist Islamists who, while totally innocent, fit the profile the Americans feared. Then, for good measure, Michael had used a very strong contact within the schismatic movement to create another false trail with the Hell’s Angels. And, finally, there was the real plot. These three channels had worked to confuse and befuddle the Federals. Yasin had called it, jokingly, his unholy Trinity. Michael had not appreciated the humor.

  There was a buzz throughout the room, and Michael heard a voice whisper into his earpiece: “His Holiness is arriving.”

  The crowd parted, as though unseen hands were separating them. Reluctantly, Michael felt that will and moved with Mulrooney to one side. A set of tall doors opened inward, and the Pope entered, followed by four or five cardinals who had traveled from Rome. There was no m
usic, no pomp of any kind, in fact. John Paul eschewed it. But the wizened old man entered with such understated authority that one

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  could not help but feel a sort of tremble in the air, as though music was playing somewhere. “The song of an invisible choir,” some writer had described it. Michael grimaced.

  The Pope stopped a few feet into the room, raised his hands, and spoke a short blessing. “May God in all his graciousness bless the attendees, and the purpose of this conference. Amen.” By long-standing agreement, he had kept his prayer neutral and, therefore, to Michael’s way of thinking, vacuous.

  As soon as the Pope had finished, a line formed to greet him. As Cardinal of the host city, Mulrooney was among the first, and soon he had knelt before John Paul and kissed his ring. As he stood, he canted forward and whispered, “Your Holiness, please forgive me. Something urgent is calling me back to St. Monica’s.”

  John Paul looked up at him with those piercing eyes. “Very well, Your Eminence.” As Mulrooney tried to disengage himself, the Pope held his hand in a viselike grip. “God alone decides our destinies, Your Eminence. May you see the true path he has set for you.”

  Then he let go.

  1:19 P.M. PST En Route to the Four Seasons Hotel

  “There’s got to be someone!’ Jack said, feeling frustrated.

  “You’ve got the whole list in front of you, Jack,” Jamey Farrell said through his cell phone. “I’m running everyone through every database I can find, but it’s not like the Vatican’s people haven’t done this. This list has been vetted by everyone all the way up to God!”

  Jack tried not to let his frustration spill over onto Jamey Farrell. She wasn’t the cause of it. He was pissed that he’d interviewed Gary Khalid—sat in the man’s house, in fact—and never realized he was a prime suspect. The other side was kicking his ass on his case, and he was tired of it.

  There has to be someone, he wanted to say again, but repeating himself would just cause tempers to flare. They were all working on no sleep. He had to gather himself before they got to the hotel. He needed to be sharp.

  “Keep checking,” he said. He gave her the contact information for Carlos at the National Security Agency. “Call him. He’ll give you a hard time, but ignore it. Ask him to run everyone through every source he’s got.”

  “You want me to ask a guy I’ve never met to run a hundred people through everything everywhere?”

  “Unless you have a better idea,” Jack said. “I’m getting desperate.” He thought of the fail-safe implanted into Collins, set for five-thirty. He was guessing he didn’t have that much time.

  1:21 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

  Pope John Paul spent a moment with each person who had come to the conference. The truth was, as far as he was concerned, this was the conference. There would be a roundtable discussion tomorrow,

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  and several symposia on various topics, led by clergymen with impressive credentials from around the world. But this was the real victory—to get these people of various faiths, fundamental and progressive, into one room together, to discuss the need for religious tolerance . . . that was an act of God all by itself.

  John Paul glanced over the shoulder of the American televangelist who was speaking to him, and saw a bearded imam partway down the line. He thought he recognized the man and dragged his name out of memory: al-Hassan. He’d read the man’s book. It had been an unforgiving but insightful critique of the West’s view of Islam. Exactly the sort of man John Paul needed at his side. He was eager for al-Hassan to make his way forward.

  1:23 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

  Jack pulled up to the valet stand at the Four Seasons. He and Driscoll flashed their badges and hurried into the elegant lobby. There was a trim, well-dressed man standing by the elevators, and Jack approached him. “Federal agent Jack Bauer,” he said in a low voice. “I need to get up to the conference.”

  The man studied Jack’s credentials carefully, and did the same with Driscoll’s. He also looked into Jack’s eyes, as though trying to read something else there. Then he muttered into the mic in his sleeve. Finally, he stepped aside, and Jack entered the private elevator that rose to the hotel’s penthouse.

  When the elevator door opened, he was greeted by a thin, unimposing man, but Jack’s instincts told him this was a man to be reckoned with.

  “Your credentials, please,” he said. Jack and Harry both complied. When Giancarlo had examined them to his satisfaction, he escorted them down the hallway—not the reception room, but the adjacent security office.

  “Giancarlo,” Jack said as soon as they were inside, “I don’t know how to impress on you the urgency—”

  “You have already impressed this on me,” the other man said in finely accented English. “My job is the security of His Holiness, and I have told him already my opinion.”

  “Then let’s get him out of here,” Jack said. “Drag him kicking and screaming if you have to—”

  Giancarlo’s look was reproachful. “Clearly, that cannot be done. The Holy Father has committed his life to this peace effort.”

  “And we’re all in the business of making sure his life is long enough to see it through. Look, let’s make it simple. Just pull the fire alarm or something. Have someone get sick. It doesn’t matter how, just get the Pope out of that room.”

  Giancarlo looked at Jack with sympathetic eyes. “I admire your desire, but I cannot do it. His Holiness has expressly forbidden anything that will damage the peace effort.”

  “Goddamned martyrs.” That was Harry Driscoll, muttering under his breath. He realized he’d spoken aloud only when everyone looked at him. He shrank back as much as a two-hundred-pound man could. “Just thinking out loud,” he apologized, but Jack knew he was right.

  The serenity of Giancarlo was starting to annoy

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  Jack. The Vatican man said, “It is odd, isn’t it, that in our line of work we give our lives freely, but we call the sacrifices of others selfish.”

  Jack replied, “Because when we die, it doesn’t turn the politics of the world upside down.”

  1:30 P.M. PST West Los Angeles Police Station

  Detective Mercy Bennett looked at the note attached to the file on her desk. She buzzed her captain. “Hey, Cap, what is CTU? I have a note here to call them.”

  The captain made a low, quizzical noise, trying to remember it himself. “Oh, yeah. Counter Terrorism Unit, or something like that. New protocol. Anything we get that might involve religious fundamentalists, we send them a Post-it note.”

  “Religious fundamentalists?” she asked.

  “Really, we’re talking about Islamic nutcases who want to blow themselves up,” the captain said in his own inimitable style. “But we can’t say that on the record. Anyway, just buzz them with the info.”

  Mercy shrugged and redialed. It took several rings for someone to answer. “Jamey Farrell.”

  “Mercy Bennett, LAPD,” she said. “Listen, I got word to call you guys. We picked up a body earlier. We haven’t done forensics on it, but we ran prints. The deceased is Abdul al-Hassan.”

  There was a pause. “Um, okay. Anything else?”

  “That’s it. I was just told to call.”

  1:32 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jamey Farrell put down the phone and went back to her database. She was so focused on her searches that she nearly forgot the message as soon as she’d hung up. Just in time, she grabbed a pen and scribbled the name on the back of some other notes. Someday they’d need receptionists and lower-level staff for that sort of thing.

  1:33 P.M. PST Sweetzer Avenue, Los Angeles

  Khalid decided he’d waited long enough. There had been no activity on the street. For all he knew, the police might be combing the city for him, but they weren’t looking here. This was Khalid’s old mail route, and he knew every car that parked here regularly. Nothing was out of order.

  Khalid go
t out of his car and walked down the street toward the house where Mousa and the others had lived. The three men were more complicit than they let on, of course, but much less than the authorities had suspected. In the end, they were dupes, enjoying the thrill of living on the edge of danger but really knowing nothing of what went on. If they’d known the crate had contained explosives, they probably would have run screaming like girls.

  Gerry walked up to the Sweetzer house and opened it with a key hidden under a rock in the garden. He ducked under the police tape still strung across the porch and opened the door. He was sure the authori

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  ties would not have taken his bag. It was well-hidden, and the documents and cash inside were in a secret compartment.

  Khalid walked through the living room and toward the bedroom when he heard the female voice behind him. “Hello, Gary.”

  1:40 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

  Jack moved through the reception hall, every sense heightened, as though he might be able to hear or smell a bomb. There was still a substantial reception line waiting to greet the Pope, and he walked along it casually. It was a surreal moment, imagining that one of them was a human bomb.

  “Jack Bauer,” said someone in line. Bauer, who had been looking at hands and bodies, focused on a face and recognized Amy Weiss, the

  L.A. Times reporter. He remembered her as fairly new back when he was on SWAT, the kind of journeyman who did all the legwork but got only a “contributed” line at the bottom of the articles.

  She was canny enough not to mention his profession when he was in plainclothes. “Amy,” he said. “You’ve become enlightened, I guess.” He pointed to the religious leaders all around her.

  She laughed. “Well, I do write the truth for a living,” she said. “But I still do it for the papers. I just got to interview the Pope, so I was given an invitation to the reception.”