24 Declassified: 04 - Cat's Claw

by John Whitman

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  gan to research account number 343934425. Like accounts in Swiss banks, the Cayman Islands accounts were kept confidential, but unlike the Swiss, the Cayman Islanders had neither the tradition nor the backbone to maintain that privacy under pressure. As she dug deeper, Jessi expected to find history on some FBI or CIA investigation that had linked the name Marcus Lee to account 343934425.

  She was right that a prior investigation had matched Lee to the account. But to her surprise she found that the investigation itself was Russian. Jessi stared at the screen for a moment, baffled by the notation. But there was no mistake: Russian intelligence had fed the CIA the data. This wasn’t completely unheard of, but to Jessi it was a gaping hole in the road.

  Fortunately, she knew someone who might be able to help. She dialed a number she hated to admit she knew by heart.

  “Hey,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Hi Kelly,” Jessi said. “How are you?”

  “Well, better now,” said Kelly Sharpton. “I’ve been hoping you’d call.”

  “It’s business,” Jessi said.

  “Oh.”

  Kelly Sharpton had been her boss for a short time at CTU. He’d been brought in on temporary assignment during Jack Bauer’s fall from grace. There’d been a spark between them, but Sharpton had left the unit some time ago, “seduced by the lure of filthy lucre,” as he put it, and the spark had never started a fire. At least that was how Jessi thought of it. But they spoke every now and again when Kelly was in town, and Kelly had been growing more and more obvious with his hints.

  “You have some contacts with the Russians, don’t you?”

  “Did,” he corrected. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’m following a trail that leads from a CIA file to Russian intelligence. Can you put the word out for me?”

  “Do I get a dinner out of it?” Kelly laughed.

  Jessi felt her heart flutter. She shouldn’t be flirting with him. He’s older, he’s traveling, his work might put us in conflict... But she heard herself say, “Depends on how good you are.”

  “Deal,” he said. “Expect a call.”

  1:20 P.M. PST North Side of the Federal Building, West Los Angeles

  Jack slipped out of the double doors and ran behind the line of officers near the entrance of the Federal Building.

  The scene was rapidly spiraling out of control. A bottle shattered on the ground a few feet behind him. Dark smoke mixed with the plumes of tear gas, and Jack knew that protestors had set fire to something, probably a car. He also knew that over at the Veteran Center, half a mile away, LAPD had mustered the horse-mounted squad. If the violence continued, they’d be charging down Wilshire Boulevard, backed up by rubber bullets.

  Jack reached the north end of the Federal Building. “I’m here,” he said into his mobile phone. “Talk to me.”

  He was still in touch with Cynthia Rosen downstairs in the command center. She talked back to him now. “He’s still there. Getting tough to stay on him, though. Bodies are starting to fly around there.”

  “I’m there.”

  The north side of the Federal Building was the narrowest plot of land—an arcade no more than ten yards wide, with a grass lawn another twenty yards, and then the street.

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  LAPD’s original plan had blocked traffic from the street, allowing the protestors to occupy the boulevard and leaving a healthy perimeter between them and the building. The riot had changed all that, and as Jack rounded the corner, the crowd was pushing its way onto the concrete. There was a police line there as well, and in Jack’s view they were exercising admirable discipline. Protestors were pushing at their phalanx of riot shields, but they had yet to bring their batons to bear.

  “He’s at your nine o’clock,” Rosen said. “Blue shirt.”

  Jack looked to his left. It was nearly impossible to get a clean look at anyone beyond the riot shields and in the swarming crowd. But a flash of blue caught his attention and he focused on it. The man wearing the shirt did not stand in the front ranks, but close enough to be noticed, raising his fist and yelling at the police line.

  Jack hesitated before moving on. Something about this man’s presence at the protest didn’t make sense. Why would a terrorist working for Ayman al-Libbi bother with the political protest? It didn’t make sense even to risk a showing. There was no upside, and al-Libbi could not be completely confident that Federal investigators hadn’t identified at least some of his help. So this man was either so far down the food chain that al-Libbi considered him unimportant, or he had some other reason for keeping him at the protest. Jack tucked that thought away as he made his move.

  He did not want the subject or anyone nearby to see him come from the Federal Building, so he turned back around the corner, then passed through the police line.

  “Where do you think you’re—?” one of the officers asked.

  “Federal agent,” Jack said, flashing his badge. He held it tight in his left hand, figuring he might need it again soon.

  Crossing the line between the police phalanx and the rioters, Jack felt like a sailor leaping from the ship and into a choppy sea.

  “Who the hell are you?” a young man challenged, grabbing Jack as he pushed his way into the crowd.

  Jack kneed him in the groin. “No one to mess with.”

  He stepped over the man and into the space created where he fell. A few more people yelled at him or clutched at him, but Jack ignored them, and a few steps later he was among people who hadn’t seen him and didn’t pay attention to him except for the second during which he pushed past them. They were all chanting in the same rhythm, but he had the impression the words changed from group to group, as though the rioters were made up of distinct groups with distinct messages who’d all fallen under the same spell. As he made his way through the crowd, rounding the corner of the building, a young Latino pushed him aside and threw a bottle. Jack watched it spin through the air toward a police officer, who ducked behind his shield as the bottle bounced away. The young man smiled at Jack and said something in Spanish that he didn’t quite catch. Jack resisted the urge to punch him in the face and moved on.

  He waded through the crowd and reached the north side. Using the building as perspective, he made his way back to the point where he’d seen the blue shirt. There was an ebb and flow to the mob as it pushed close to the police barricade and then gave way, and the blue-shirted man was no closer to his original position than a man overboard at sea. But Jack spotted him at last, a few yards away. He shoved his way past four or five short Latino men dressed in primitive costumes, with signs that read “dejar la amazona tranquila!”, elbowed through two men holding a banner that said, say no to china! remember tiananmen! Finally, he forced an open space next to the man in the blue shirt.

  Jack had expected him to look Middle Eastern, but if looks were any indicator, the man’s background was farther

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  east and north. He looked Chinese, or Slavic, or both. Jack had traveled in the “-stans” that were the former satellites of the old Soviet Union—Uzbekistan, Turkistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the like. The blue-shirted man reminded Jack of men from that region. This thought reminded Jack of something he’d heard in a briefing several weeks earlier, but he couldn’t recall it at the moment.

  Jack pulled out his cell phone and activated the camera feature. He knew the blue-shirted man wasn’t paying much attention to him, but he pretended to enter a number and hold the phone to his ear. “What!” he yelled, just for show. “What?” He pulled the phone away from his ear the way people did who’d lost a connection, as though moving the phone a few inches away would improve the reception. In that moment the blue-shirted man’s face appeared on the screen. Jack snapped the picture. A second later he forwarded it to CTU.

  1:35 P.M. PST UCLA Medical Center

  Tony Almeida woke with a start when his chin fell forward into his chest. His headach
e had eased over the last hour, but he was still having that strange post-concussion sensation of layered awareness. Every ten minutes or so he felt as if now, finally, his mind was completely lucid... only to discover ten minutes later that his mind really hadn’t been clear, but now it was... only to make the same discovery again in a few minutes, and so on.

  He checked the big round clock on the hospital room wall. He’d been asleep only for a few seconds. Dyson was still in the bed, motionless, the monitors beeping along calmly. Dyson’s skull had been fractured by his impact with the cinder-block wall.

  Tony stood up and was glad when the room didn’t spin. He walked over and stood next to the bed, looking down at Dyson. An oxygen tube hung under his nose and draped over his face.

  Who are you working for? Tony asked silently. Why did you try to kill me?

  The FBI had vetted Dyson’s record and found nothing. Not trusting them, CTU had done its own research, and even Jamey Farrell, who was a tenacious analyst, had drawn a blank. As far as any of them could tell, Dyson had absolutely no connection to Ayman al-Libbi or any groups that might want to hire him.

  Tony opened his cell phone and called CTU.

  “Jamey Farrell.”

  “It’s Tony. Have we had any luck tracking any of the people in the van that took Detective Bennet?”

  She sounded mildly annoyed. “Not yet. There’s nothing on the van at all. We ran a check on Frankie Michaelmas. No one knows where she’s at. What makes you think she has anything to do with Ayman al-Libbi?”

  “Jack’s hunch,” Tony said. “Why do you ask like that?”

  “Ozersky’s a granola. Goes by the name Willow, if that tells you anything. The girl is pretty much the same. She’s an environmental freak, not a political activist. Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Just that Jack’s hunches are often right.”

  Tony hung up. Jamey had no idea how far out on a limb he’d gone to pursue one of Jack’s hunches. In fact, very few people in CTU knew how far he’d gone. To make it all turn out right, they needed a break—a big one.

  “And so far, you’re the only lead I’ve got,” Tony said to Dyson.

  As he looked down, he was sure he saw Dyson’s finger twitch.

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  1:45 P.M. PST Federal Building, West Los Angeles

  Mercy closed in on Seldom Seen Smith.

  Smith’s strategy had nearly worked. Mercy had lost him when he plunged into the crowd at the south end of the Federal Building. She’d plunged in after him, past jagged lines of people who seemed hesitant and uncertain. The protest chants had ceased, replaced by a loud, fearful buzz caused by the police activity a block or two to the north. She slid between people and stood on her toes, which did her no good.

  She’d grabbed a cell phone out of someone’s hand. “Hey!” the young girl complained. Mercy ignored her and dialed 911, but the circuits were busy. She’d dialed the direct line for her office, but the line rang until a recording came on saying, “Thank you for calling the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Bureau. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911...”

  Mercy closed the connection and tossed the phone back to the girl. If she needed another one, there’d be plenty around. She pushed forward, not knowing what else to do, knowing that Smith would do everything he could to lose himself in the huge crowd. As she moved forward, she made mental notes about his appearance: Caucasian male, over six feet, balding with brown hair, eye color probably brown, thin, probably under two hundred pounds...

  And then she saw him. He had done the right thing, changing his pace, moving slowly to avoid attention. She would have missed him entirely if luck hadn’t turned her in exactly his direction. Their eyes locked for a moment, his opening wide and hers narrowing sharply. He moved away from her and she moved forward.

  She had tracked him that way through the crowd until now, at the far northeast edge of the crowd, almost two blocks away from the Federal Building, he was coming to the edge. Mercy saw open street beyond. More importantly, she saw two uniformed police officers stationed at the corner. Pinning her eyes to Smith’s back, she moved toward the cops. “I’m a cop,” she said. “Detective Bennet, West Bureau. I lost my badge during a pursuit. I need help with an arrest. Can you call for backup?”

  “Who’d we call?” one of the uniforms said sarcastically. “Everyone’s here.”

  “Then it’s you two,” she said.

  “How do we know?”

  “You don’t,” she admitted. “But who else is going to walk up to you and say they are a female detective from West Bureau?”

  The uniformed cops nodded; not quite convinced, but willing to play this out. They followed her into the crowd. Smith had seen them. As they moved forward, he moved back into the crowd itself. What’s he doing? Mercy wondered. She wasn’t going to lose him, and the crowd meant that he moved more slowly.

  Much more slowly, in fact. The two uniforms fanned out and easily flanked Smith. Mercy moved forward. Smith had slowed almost to a stop. Was he giving up?

  The uniform on Smith’s left moved in. Smith raised his hand and yelled, “I give up! I give up! Stop hurting me!” in a voice full of panic.

  The cop stopped, taken aback by the fear in Smith’s voice, since the cop hadn’t touched him at all.

  “Stop! Help!” Smith screamed in a high-pitched voice. He lunged forward at the cop, who held up his hands defensively. Smith clutched at the officer but yelled, “Let go of me! Help!”

  “Hey, man, he’s not fighting you,” someone standing nearby said.

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  “Get off him, you freakin’ fascist,” said a blond kid in a Von Dutch T-shirt.

  “Get him off me, get him off!” Smith yelled.

  The second uniform rushed forward, seeing his partner in a struggle, and pulled Smith away and to the ground.

  “Goddamned pig!” the blond kid yelled, angry now.

  Mercy saw it happen, but couldn’t stop it. Smith clutched at the officer, preventing him from standing up, but yelled, “Help! Help! He’s breaking my arm!”

  Two protestors yelled and grabbed the officer from behind, pulling him away. The officer swung wildly and hit the blond kid in the face. He jumped on the officer’s back, and the first cop, who’d regained his feet, waded in to help. Before anyone could stop it, a huge fight had broken out, and the two uniforms disappeared under a pile of bodies.

  Smith slipped away.

  1:47 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  At that moment, Jamey Farrell hated camera phones. Worse than useless, they gave the impression of being useful without delivering much on the promise.

  She’d received the photo sent over by Jack Bauer—a grainy close-up of a dark-haired man in blue. It might as well have been an Impressionist painting. But Jamey knew her job and she did it well. Within minutes of receiving the file, Jamey fed the data over into CTU’s image-enhancing software. A quick phone call to Jack confirmed that the man was of Slavic/Asian descent, which helped her nudge the program. The computers had spent the last few minutes reconstructing the subject’s face. Every ten seconds or so her computer screen rolled like a wave, and a slightly sharper version of the man’s face appeared. The image had just reached the point where Jamey felt it was worth running through CTU’s facial recognition software.

  She used the inter-office line and called over to Donovan Exley, a young analyst with graphics expertise. “Van, I’m going to feed you an image. Can you run FRS on it right away.”

  “No prob,” he replied.

  Jamey sent the file and nodded in satisfaction. The wonders of science would turn Jack Bauer’s Impressionist painting into the complete biography of a terrorist suspect.

  1:50 P.M. PST North Side of the Federal Building, West Los Angeles

  Jack waited impatiently for Jamey Farrell to get off her ass and get him information. He knew that wasn’t fair—Jamey was one of the most capable analysts he’d met. But standing
in the midst of ten thousand screaming protestors with clouds of tear gas wafting through the mob did not increase his empathy.

  He looked to the east, where the tear gas had been fired. There was dark smoke there, too, probably a car fire, but he hadn’t seen people running from that direction. He guessed that the incident had been isolated. Tear gas had probably scattered the vandals, and so LAPD had backed off.

  The blue-shirted man was still close by. Jack had spent the intervening minutes studying the people around him—they were a mix of Slavs and Asians, and they were definitely with the anti-China contingent. With nothing else to do except try to blend in, Jack joined in a chant (something about “China’s record doesn’t rate—keep them out of the G8”)

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  while he formed theories about his subject. He decided that there was only one way the subject could and would be seen at the protest: he was expected to be there. There was no other explanation for why a man with terrorist connections had been seen twice. He wanted to be seen—at least, he’d wanted to be seen the second time. The first time, when the security cameras had caught him in the middle of his meeting with Muhammad Abbas, had been luck—Abbas had stayed away from Federal property like a vampire avoiding a church. But now the blue-shirted man was doing everything he could to get noticed.

  He’s a member of an anti-China political group, Jack told himself. Someone who’d be expected to be here. Whatever’s going down at the summit, they know we’ll go after everyone when it’s over, and he doesn’t want to do anything out of the ordinary.

  Jack smiled grimly at his own detective work. Who needed computers?

  A moment later, he felt the change before he saw it. A wave of anxiety swept through the mob, moving like a murmur through a crowd, only stronger, more visceral. Row by row, lines of people turned their heads away from the Federal Building and toward the west. In the distance, someone screamed.

  Jack stood as tall as he could, but saw nothing. At the edge of the plaza, near the sidewalk, was a row of short cement pylons. They were designed to look decorative, but their real purpose was to prevent car bombers from driving into the building. Jack pushed his way past murmuring, confused protestors until he found one of these pylons and stood up on it, raising himself a good two feet above the crowd. The screaming increased; the protest chants had turned to cries of fear and terror.