The desserts were dished up, the coffee served. The second round of after dinner speeches, including the keynote address by Senator David Palmer, was about to begin.
Evelyn Ankers interrupted Lilly Sheridan at table six and send her to the beverage pantry to fetch pitchers of distilled ice water for the speaker’s podium.
As she crossed the crowded banquet hall, the cell phone in Lilly’s skirt pocket vibrated. She waited until she was in the wings and out of sight to before answering, lest the authoritarian banquet manager catch her on a personal call. Finally Lilly reached a quiet alcove near the rest rooms and reached for the phone. Along with the cell she pulled someone’s business card out of her pocket. Lilly immediately checked the caller’s number. As she feared, the call came from her daughter.
“Pamela, I told you not to call me unless—”
“Shut up and listen for once, Lilly. I have a gentleman here who wants to speak with you.”
“Stella? Is that you? Where’s Pamela? What’s the mat—”
A man’s accented voice interrupted her. “Lilly Sheridan, listen carefully. We have your daughter. She’s safe as long as you follow our instructions.”
Icy hands seemed to squeeze the breath out of Lilly’s lungs. “I don’t understand. Is this some kind of sick joke—”
“It’s no joke, honey.” Stella again. “We’re here in the uniform storage room where you stashed your kid. Pamela’s safe. It’s up to you to see that she stays that way. Here, talk to your mom, cuddle bunny.”
Lilly strained to hear over the noisy crowd. “Mom. I’m scared. Aunt Stella is acting weird and—”
“That’s enough,” Stella Hawk interrupted. “In a couple of minutes, a guy’s going to show up in front of the kitchen door. He’ll be pushing a serving cart with flowers on it. That’s Carlos. He’ll tell you what to do.”
“Stella, why are you doing this?”
“Shut up, Lil. I can’t stand it when you whine.”
Stella hung up.
Trembling, Lilly lowered the phone, leaned against a pillar to keep from falling down. She twisted her head to face the kitchen door, but saw no one pushing a flower cart. Fumbling to put away her phone, Lilly realized she was clutching something in her left hand — Jaycee Jager’s business card. She stared at the number scrawled on the back, her mind racing. Jager was Stella’s boyfriend. Could he have something to do with what was happening? Somehow she didn’t think so, but Lilly realized Jaycee might know something.
Crouching out of sight behind the coffee station, Lilly quickly punched in Jaycee’s number.
10:41:00 P.M. PDT The Cha-Cha Lounge, Las Vegas
When the lights went out, Jack heard the gang’s cries of alarm. He listened while Don Driscoll tried to calm them, insisting the power failure was just a glitch.
But it was their leader, the man called Wildman, who finally restored order. Despite his outlandish appearance, Wildman seemed to know what he was doing. That was unfortunate. Jack assumed that when the lights failed, the gang would panic, maybe scatter. He could easily gun them down one by one. But since they stuck together, the hit team had a better chance of stopping Jack before he got them all.
Bauer crept down the remaining steps. With the night vision equipment, he could clearly see the men in the corridor — white blobs in a field of green, twenty feet away. Their guns were drawn, and they had formed a defensive circle. Jack was willing to wait for a better shot, because it would be difficult to take them down now.
Then Jack saw Don Driscoll reach into his pocket. When his hand came out again, the man was clutching a flashlight pointed in Jack’s direction. Like it or not, the time for Jack to strike had come.
Aiming with both hands, Jack stepped away from the wall and fired. The first shot took out the man with the shotgun. He tumbled to the concrete floor. The second shot slammed into the man with the Raiders cap, threw him backwards in a gush of blood. His fall left a man in a hooded jacket exposed, and Jack shot him next. The man reeled but didn’t go down, so Jack shot him again.
The man with the cornrows stepped behind Don Driscoll. Jack paused, unwilling to risk hitting his pit boss. He shifted his aim and took down the other three hit men in quick succession, each with a tap to the head.
A flash exploded in Jack’s night vision goggles as Wildman opened fire. Tracers lit the walls as they tore down the corridor. Silhouetted in the muzzle flash, Jack saw Don Driscoll drop. The leader of the hit team was exposed now, and Jack fired his last round. Wildman slammed into the wall and slid to the floor, the top of his head blown away.
Jack stepped over a dead man to reach Don Driscoll. He didn’t have to check the body to know the man was dead. Wildman’s random shots had cut Don Driscoll’s body in half.
Jack cursed. He’d hoped to grill the man about Hugo Bix’s next move. Holstering the Glock, Jack reached into his back pocket for his cell, pressed speed dial.
“O’Brian,” Morris answered. “It’s over,” Jack announced. “Give me some lights down here…” The lights sprang on a moment later. The grotesque scene was not improved by the harsh fluorescent glare. “Jack, could you come upstairs. We have another development,” said Morris. Jack touched his forehead, looked away from the dead men sprawled on the floor. “I’ll be right up.”
Jack closed the cell phone — and it chirped immediately. He checked the display, didn’t recognize the number.
“Jaycee,” he answered.
“Jaycee! What is Stella doing? Why is she threatening to hurt my daughter?” “Lilly, is that you? Slow down. What’s going on?” “Some man, with Stella. They’re here at the Baby
lon. They’ve got my daughter, Jaycee! They say they’ll hurt her if I don’t do what they want…”
Jack’s mind raced. There was something at the Babylon tonight… He’d seen it in the daily threat report. An anti-drug conference with VIP guests.
“Where are you right now?” Jack cried.
“I’m in the ballroom, the speeches are about to start. I—”
Suddenly the line went dead. Jack tried for a signal, got one immediately. He hit redial and after three rings, was transferred to Lilly’s voice mail. Jack raced down the corridor and took the stairs two at a time.
10:46:01 P.M. PDT Babylon Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas
Curtis stomped on the gas pedal, crashed the Dodge Sprinter through the security gate at the entrance to the hotel’s underground parking garage. Over the squeal of tires, Curtis heard the guard’s shouted commands to halt.
Good, he thought. That got their attention.
He circled the first level of the parking garage, looking for the other truck bombs. He realized only then that there were six levels to this parking garage, enough space for thousands of cars, light trucks, and SUVs. He could never find the bombs in time. Not without help.
Curtis skidded to a halt, snatched the shotgun off the seat and jumped out of the truck. He’d spied a fire alarm box near the elevators. Curtis broke the glass with the butt of the shotgun and pressed the red button.
The teeth rattling sound of a dozen alarm bells filled the garage. Covering his ears, Curtis moved on to another alarm box and smashed it open.
He knew that triggering the fire alarms was an act of desperation. Curtis did it because he’d run out of options. For the last hour, he’d experienced the déjà vu feeling he was trapped in one of those nightmares he’d experienced as a child, dreams where you try to make an important phone call but keep messing up the numbers, or you try to yell for help and can’t find your voice. Curtis had never felt more ineffectual or more isolated.
The irony was that ten minutes after he left the dead cops, Curtis believed his problems were solved. He steered the truck into a strip mall where he’d spotted an all night liquor store with a pay phone under its sign. Standing in the neon’s glare, Curtis punched in the ten digit emergency phone number to CTU, a number unique to this current operation. He hoped to reach Jamey Farrell or Milo Pressman, convince th
em to issue a Code Red and dispatch emergency teams to the Babylon.
Instead, Curtis was connected to an electronic voice telling him the number he called was no longer in service. He hung up and called again, fearing he’d erred in the dialing. Curtis nearly smashed the receiver when he got the same taped message a second time.
He cursed loudly, causing the winos on the corner to give him a wide berth. Curtis realized something bad had happened. Someone back at CTU headquar-ters — Ryan Chappelle, George Mason, Alberta Green, or maybe Richard Walsh or Henderson himself — had shut them down with extreme prejudice. The Vegas operation was in the throes of deactivation, a bureaucratic mess that left Curtis without any access to CTU. It was a Draconian move usually reserved for missions that had been compromised: when an agent broke the law, or leaked intelligence, or there was a catastrophic threat and the field agents had to be recalled.
What could have happened? Curtis wondered. Did headquarters learn about Max Farrow’s death, and the fact that Jack was hiding the murder from his superiors?
Curtis realized that might be enough to warrant deactivation, but who would talk? He didn’t, and he was damn sure Morris could keep a secret, too.
But there was no use speculating. Whatever happened to trigger deactivation, Curtis was now effectively on his own. CTU wouldn’t recognize his operational codes, even if he called the number listed in the phone book and tried to explain who he was and what was happening. As far as his superiors were concerned, he, Jack, Morris, and probably Tony Almeida at Groom Lake, were all compromised. They would have to be thoroughly debriefed by their superiors before they were reinstated and their security clearances restored.
Clutching the receiver in a death grip, Curtis dialed O’Brian’s number at the Cha-Cha. He was shocked to get the man’s voice mail. What could Morris be doing that was more important than monitoring the activities of the field agents?
Probably establishing deactivation protocols with whoever showed up to shut us down, Curtis mused bitterly. He left a message outlining what was going on, then hung up.
Curtis considered calling 911 and reporting an anonymous bomb threat. But in the end he vetoed the idea. It would only cause more chaos. Better if he was on the scene, Curtis decided. He could do more at the hotel.
After that he drove directly to the Babylon and began setting off the fire alarms, hoping to bring the authorities. But as he sprinted toward the elevator, Curtis stopped in his tracks. Three armed men in security uniforms blocked his path. Someone shouted. Even over the shrill, constant clang of the alarm bells, Curtis heard the words clearly.
“Drop the shotgun or we’ll shoot.”
10:55:21 P.M. PDT Hanging Gardens Ballroom Babylon Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas
All eyes were on the podium. In the glare of a spotlight, Congressman Larry Bell commenced his introduction of the keynote speaker with a rambling account of a moment the two men shared back when they were both pro basketball players.
Lilly tried to call Jaycee Jager again, but she could not get a signal. She tried a pay phone next, but it seemed to be out of order. There was no tone, and all she heard was white noise.
Approaching the kitchen, Lilly spotted a man in a waiter’s uniform standing beside a wheeled cart strewn with flowers. She approached the stranger warily, intimidated by his intense gaze. When Lilly was within arm’s length, he seized her wrist.
“Do you wish to see your daughter again?” he hissed, his hot breath on her face.
Lilly nodded and the man released her.
“Wheel this cart to a spot behind the speaker’s podium, there—” he gestured with a jerk of his head. “In front of that row of flags.”
“Why do you want me to do this?” Lilly demanded.
“Do as you are told,” the man snapped. “Leave the cart and come back here. Then I will take you to your daughter.”
Balboa Rojas slid the cart in front of her. Numb, Lilly gripped the handles.
“Hurry,” he commanded. “You are running out of time.”
She stumbled forward. As she pushed the wheeled cart in front of her, Lilly’s mind was racing.
There must be a bomb on this cart, she reasoned.
Lilly looked down at the mass of flowers. There was nowhere to hide an explosive that she could see. But then, Lilly realized she didn’t know what to look for, really. She reckoned that three sticks of dynamite attached to an alarm clock was probably not how bombs looked these days.
She realized the bomb was hidden under the table cloth. Weaving around a knot of women heading for the powder room, Lilly crouched low as if tying her shoe. She attempted to lift the pristine white tablecloth, but it was fastened to the cart. Lilly glanced in the direction of the kitchen, saw the man called Carlos gesturing her forward. She stood and wheeled the cart closer to the podium.
As she circled the main table, Lilly spied the man she and Pamela saw in the elevator earlier in the day. He was obviously a politician because he sat at the VIP table.
Is he the target of an assassination? Am I an accessory to murder? she wondered.
Circling the VIP table, Lilly approached a man standing near the row of flags, a headset in his ear. He was obviously a security man — a bodyguard, or maybe Secret Ser vice.
What will I do if he stops me? Lilly wondered, half-hoping he would. But as she came closer, the man stepped aside to let her pass, and Lilly kept on walking.
She’d almost reached the designated spot when the fire alarm went off, filling the room with noise. The house lights went up, blinding her for a moment. Guests rose, milled about as the alarm bell continued. Then Evelyn Ankers raced to the podium and stepped in front of the surprised speaker.
“Yes, that is the fire alarm, ladies and gentlemen. But don’t panic,” the woman shouted over the rising tide of hysterical voices. “This is probably a false alarm, or a smoke condition. I’m waiting for more information now…”
Lilly looked around, uncertain what to do next.
Finally she left the cart and hurried back to Carlos. She had obeyed the man’s command, now she wanted him to take her to Pamela.
But when Lilly reached the kitchen, the man with the flowers, the one person who could lead her to her daughter, was gone.
12. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 P.M. AND 12 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
11:03:51 P.M. PDT Babylon Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas
Two big men hauled a battered Curtis into the Babylon’s security center, slammed him into a chair. Adjusting their ties, the men watched every move, waiting for another chance to manhandle the CTU agent.
Curtis took in his surroundings. The elaborate hotel security center was the equal of CTU’s war room, only much smaller. Men in suits were running around, or clustered in knots, their talk animated. Dozens of monitors that should have been displaying feed from security cameras were filled with hissing snow. Something was happening, and it wasn’t good. No wonder the security staff was so touchy.
“You have to listen to me,” Curtis said through bruised lips. “There are five truck bombs in the garage right now. They’re going to go off in a couple of minutes—”
“Shut up,” snarled one of the men looming over him. “We don’t have time to listen to your bull—”
“Just call the police. Call the bomb squad. If I’m lying they can arrest me.”
“You’re already busted, asshole,” said one of the uniformed guards.
“Listen. Lives are at stake. That’s why I set off the fire alarms. The fire department should respond, right? When they get here, let me talk to them—”
Another man approached them, tall and thin in a charcoal suit. He had receding gray hair on a high forehead, a small mouth and dead gray eyes.
“What has this man done?” the gray man asked.
“We found him in the garage. He was armed, setting the fire alarms off,” one of the suited men said deferentially.
The gray man nodded. “Then it wasn’t the system tha
t triggered the alarms?”
“No, sir. Apparently not.”
“Listen,” Curtis said. “My name is Manning and I’m an agent for CTU. There are five truck bombs in your garage right now, set to go off. The truck I came in, it also has a bomb in it. I deactivated it, but you can check yourself.”
The gray man glanced at one of the guards. “He told us that story on the way up here,” the man said. “I sent a couple of guys to check it out.”
“Look, the fire department is on the way,” Curtis said. “Let me speak to the chief when he gets here.”
The gray man sighed heavily. “There will be no fire-men, Mr. Manning of CTU. You made a lot of noise, but that’s all. Some glitch has shut down our entire system. Phones. Intercoms. Cell phones. Radio and television signals. The computers that control most of the hotel’s functions are down, too. Needless to say, the fire alarm never made it to the station house.”
Curtis remembered how his cell phone had been jammed at the tool and die factory. What they used then could be bought at any high end electronics shop. This time, Curtis guessed they were using powerful microwave transmitter to jam everything within a mile’s radius. It was advanced technology, something Bix might have gotten from his connection at Area 51.
“That’s part of the plot,” Curtis explained. “The terrorists who did this have used jamming technology in the past. They want to isolate the hotel before they destroy it.”
Curtis could see the lingering doubt on the gray man’s face. “You have to believe me. Check the truck I drove here—”
Just then, a uniformed officer burst through the glass doors. “He wasn’t lying,” the man cried. “The truck he was driving was loaded with explosives. The detonation cords have been ripped out, so it’s not going off, but we found a truck just like it next to elevator shaft seven. The keys have been broken off inside the locks. We shined a light inside, saw the explosives—”
“That’s only one of the trucks!” Curtis cried. “You have to start evacuating the building immediately.”
24 Declassified: Vanishing Point 2d-5 Page 17