by John Whitman
The girl, Tina, came over. She had put her clothes back on, such as they were. Her dark hair was in pigtails.Her blouse wasrolledupand tiedinaknotunder her breasts. She wore a schoolgirl skirt specifically engineered not to cover her ass, and thigh high stockings.
“Hey, big tipper,” she said to Farrah. “I’d ask what brings you in here so early, but I know it’s me.”
“Oh, it’s you, it’s you,” Farrah said. He was like a kid in a candy store. “But it’s also a little business. I want you to keep my friend entertained while I go talk to someone. The dance is on me, okay, okay?”
She smiled at Jack. “Well, as a matter of fact, the dance is on you, but he’s paying for it.” To make her point, she fell onto him and slid her body down his until she was kneeling in front of him.
Jack tried to look as though his attention was on the girl while at the same time trying to track Farrah and his bodyguards through the darkened nightclub. Unfortunately, the table Farrah had chosen left half the club behind Jack, and turning his back on the girl would have been way too obvious. The girl lowered her head and brushed her thick black hair between his legs, then lifted her chin up to look at him and smiled as she pressed her body against him. “You’re awfully good-looking to be one of his friends,” she said with a well-practiced squeak.
“And you’re way too good to be working the dead times,” he said. “You new?”
She shook her head. “Part of the deal. Every girl’s gotta work one afternoon a month. Otherwise, no one would do it.” She jumped to her feet and turned around, arching her back and shifting her hips in a way that reached past all of Jack’s training and grabbed him in that deep place where all his primal urges lay.
A fast movement to his right caught Jack’s eye. A man ran by, followed by a big shadow. The smaller figure headed for the front exit and looked like he’d get there, but a second shadow detached itself from the wall and swallowed the little man. Jack heard a squeal. Then he heard Farrah’s voice say, “Come on, Farid, okay, okay. Come outside and talk with us. That’s all.”
The two giants turned around and started toward the back. In a flash of light from the dance floor, Jack saw a smaller man, looking like he’d just been sentenced to death, walk between them. He looked Middle Eastern.
“What’s all that?” he asked.
Tina looked over her shoulder seductively and shrugged. “Shit goes on here sometimes” was all she said.
“You know that guy with them?”
She looked, as though paying attention for the first time. “The little one. No. I mean, he’s come in once or twice but he doesn’t go for me. He’s an Arab, and they all go for the blonds.”
“An Arab,” Jack wondered, taking a long shot. “First time you saw him was maybe a few months ago? With Farrah?”
The girl shrugged. “I guess, maybe.”
“Excuse me,” he said, standing up. If Farrah’s actions in the loft were any indication, they were going to kill this man, and it occurred to Jack that this victim might be one that he needed alive.
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 4 P.M. AND 5 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
4:00 P.M. PST Peppermint Club
Jack walked across the dark club, leaving the hot-bodied girl in the schoolgirl outfit behind and chasing after the Armenian thugs and their prisoner, thinking, not for the last time, that the twists and turns of his job were sometimes ridiculous.
He reached the back door as it swung closed, and caught the handle with a sliver of light still visible. Farrah was close enough to the door that he could hear the man talking. Not wanting to reveal himself, Jack kept the door ajar and listened.
“Farrah, please, please,” the other man was pleading. “I didn’t know Rasheed would steal from you. He never stole from me.”
“Okay, okay,” Farrah said angrily. “I believe that. I believe he was stealing with you, how’s that!”
“No, please—”
“No, please,” Farrah mocked. “What I know is that you recommended that cocksucker and he stole from me. That makes me think he stole from me and maybe moved some of the merchandise through you, eh?”
“No, I swear!” the other man, Farid, pleaded.
Farrah laughed. “And do you know what else he did? What you did? You used my place as a dropoff. My place. I’m not the bus station, Farid, okay? You drop off people like that, it brings attention that I don’t want, okay?”
“Don’t kill me!”
“Why not? I thought your type was always ready to die for your cause. Isn’t that what you do, give your lives to Allah?”
“I’m not one of those!” the other man said.
“No? Your friends were, weren’t they? The ones you and Rasheed brought in. They were supposed to work for me, weren’t they, but they went off with my guns and some of my money and now where are they? Where is my money?”
“I-I don’t know. I swear I don’t know!” Just as he had with Ramin, Jack could tell that this Farid was telling the truth. He could also tell that Farrah didn’t particularly care and planned to kill him anyway. He couldn’t let that happen.
Jack pulled the door wide open and sauntered out into the bright sunlight. He blinked a little till his eyes adjusted, making all his movements big and careless.
“What the fuck—” he said casually, seeing the two big Armenians and Farrah looming over Farid, who was on his knees. Farrah, with his back to Jack, held a gun, his hand hanging low along his side.
“Just a little more business,” Farrah said.
Jack walked up to them, eyeing Farid. He was Persian, not Arab, which fit the profile Jack was looking for. He was also clearly terrified.
“Like I said, I’m looking for business,” Jack said. “You want to pay me a little something, I’ll kill him for you.”
Farrah laughed. “What, you think I catch the fish and then I need someone to carry him for me?”
“Suit yourself,” Jack said. He stepped back.
Farrah raised his gun. When he did, Jack lunged forward, covering the distance between them in a single burst, his arms extending as far as possible. One hand caught the gun and the other hand clutched Farrah’s wrist. Jack twisted his body and snapped the gun from Farrah’s hand. In nearly the same motion he smashed the muzzle into Farrah’s face and shoved him backward. He jumped away from the clutches of the two startled giants and turned the weapon on them.
Farrah spat blood out of his chubby mouth. “Okay, okay, I got to kill some people for this.”
“I’ve had one of those days, too,” Jack said. “You, Farid, I need you to stand up and come over here. You two, Dumb and Dumber, you stay where you are.”
The Peppermint’s back door flew open and Tina walked out. “Hey, someone’s got to pay me!”
The sound of the door flying open seemed to break a spell that bound them all. The two giants lumbered into action. Farid bolted like a frightened rabbit. Farrah reached down to his ankle for what was undoubtedly a backup weapon.
Jack fired, but Farrah’s gun jammed. The first giant put a huge hand on him and Jack, still holding the weapon by its grip, punched the muzzle into his teeth. He snatched his own weapon from the Armenian’s belt and, at the same time, kicked the other one in the groin. Both giants sagged down to their knees. Jack took off after Farid, who had nearly reached the corner of the building.
4:31 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Jessi Bandison buzzed Kelly Sharpton in his office.
“Kelly, we have results.”
“I’ll come down. Call Chappelle.”
Kelly descended the stairs and headed for the conference room. Chappelle was there before him, along with Nina Myers and half of CTU. Nina Myers said specifically to Kelly and Chappelle, “Let me introduce Amy Brant. She’s on loan to us from the NSA, because we didn’t have anyone who recognized the wiring we found. Ms. Brant.”
A heavyset woman wit
h the face of a farmer’s daughter stood up. She held a tiny piece of blue rubber in her hand. When she pressed a button on the conference display, an image of the same piece of blue rubber appeared on the screen, greatly magnified.
“This is a sample of what your forensics team found in the condo,” Ms. Brant said in a Minnesota accent. “This, plus some interesting plastic connectors, like this.” She clicked a mouse, and a new image popped up. This piece looked like an orange plastic cap. “This is a connector, the kind you use when you have two wires you want to put together.”
“Like if you’re installing a lamp in the ceiling,” Kelly offered.
“Right there,” Brant said. “So the functions the wire and the connector serve aren’t anything special. But the rubber coating on the wire, and the shape and content of the plastic connector, these were things we hadn’t seen before.”
“Do you know where they come from?” Chappelle asked.
“We do now,” Brant said. “They come from us. We make them.”
“What do they do?”
Brant said. “This rubber coating and these connectors are designed to insulate electronic devices against attacks from electromagnetic pulse weapons. EMPs.”
The room filled with the low buzz of questions. Chappelle leaned over to Kelly. “Another loose end,” he whispered.
Kelly tapped his knuckles on the table for attention. “Wait, wait. I understand what electromagnetic pulses are. Those are the things that knock out electronic devices, right?”
“A nuclear blast might cause one,” Nina Myers said.
“A number of people have been working on devices that cause EMP bursts without wiping out the territory with a nuclear blast,” Amy Brant said. “EMP burst weapons would neutralize unshielded enemy electronics, everything from night vision goggles to fighter bombers. Some of the research is going on at Cal Tech over in Pasadena.”
“Working on,” Chappelle repeated. “Do functioning devices like these actually exist.”
“Oh, yes,” Brant said. “But only as prototypes. That is, the functionality is certain. Field application such as proper transportation, field repair and diagnostics, all of that is in its infancy.”
Nina Myers gave voice to a concern they all felt. “We spend a lot of time worrying about nuclear, chemical, and bio threats. Why not this? What would happen if someone set one of these things off in a city like Los Angeles?”
“Of course, it depends on the size of the pulse. There are other factors, too. The ground acts as a natural, well, ground, so the closer the device is to the Earth, the less effect it has. But if it were big enough and high enough, it would knock out everything.
“There’s another kind of EMP device being developed. It’s called HERF gun. That’s high energy radio frequency gun to you laymen. It’s exactly what it sounds like—a directed weapon that can be aimed at a specific vehicle or machine. It’s obviously much less dangerous to the population at large, but it can totally shut down whatever it’s aimed at.”
“The military applications must be staggering,” Kelly said.
Ms. Brant nodded. “Yes, I think so, but I’m not sure. The downside to an EMP device is that you can shield against it. That brings us back to these wires. You can shield a device in two ways: by putting it in a Farraday Cage, or by wiring it with insulation like this.”
“Farraday Cage?” Nina asked.
“Basically it’s a big metal tube that deflects electromagnetic pulses. It works really well, but you have to have one big enough to cover whatever you want to protect. So the wiring option is usually better. You could wire an entire airplane if you had to, but it would be a huge project.”
Chappelle groaned. “Okay, so now we know what an EMP device does. And we know that someone in that condo had wiring specially designed to resist one. Do we know who was in the condo?”
Kelly answered. “Best guess is Frank Newhouse, undercover for the Department of Justice, pretending to work with the Greater Nation militia. But why he continues to go undercover, I don’t know. And I don’t know why he’d plant a bomb in his condo.”
“Maybe the militia got him,” Nina suggested. “Maybe they planted the bomb.”
“Forensics?” Chappelle inquired.
Another CTU agent, Janet Takuyama from the forensics department, spoke up. “We pulled up thirteen separate sets of fingerprints, including Frank Newhouse, a set we matched to a maid, and two sets we matched to maintenance workers. The others don’t show up in our database, which could just mean they don’t have records yet.”
“It also means they’re not military or law enforcement,” Chappelle noted.
Takuyama continued, “We also pulled a bad partial off of one of the buckets. We’re running it against possible matches, but that list is going to be long. We’ll try to whittle it down.”
4:39 P.M. PST Peppermint Club
Farid rounded the front of the Peppermint Club and ran back into the building. This was either a brilliant strategy because it was unexpected, or it would deliver him right back into the hands of his enemies if they cut through the building.
Jack burst inside, shoving his way past the startled doorman who clearly had already been knocked off his stool by Farid. The man grabbed Jack’s shoulder. Jack spun and punched him in the throat and the man dropped with a gasp. Jack pushed through the thick velvet curtains into the club again.
“Ah!”
His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark, but he heard the sound and he could just make out Farid struggling with one of the Armenians.
“Freeze!” Jack yelled. He put a warning shot into the ceiling. The girls in the room screamed and a few male voices shouted in alarm. Shadowy figures scattered in several directions. Jack leveled his Sig, but in the dark, with two struggling figures, he had no shot. He raced forward and threw himself at the bigger of the two figures. It was like hitting a tree. He bounced off, but managed to keep his feet. The giant shoved Farid aside and punched Jack in the face. The room spun. Jack felt the giant grab his hair and punch him again. Jack shoved his gun into the Armenian’s stomach and fired three times. The giant crashed to the floor.
Jack staggered backward, his head swimming. He shook the cobwebs out and spun in time to see Farrah and the other bodyguard burst into the room. He raised his weapon and fired, but his vision was blurred, ruining his aim. Dazed though he was, he had the sense to duck as four or five gunshots answered his own. He rolled to his left, bumping into a chair. He crawled along the floor. He felt blood pour down his nose, but he didn’t care about the bleeding. He needed time for his head to clear.
He nearly forgot about Farid. He caught a glimpse of the man running for the back door again. Jack rolled to his back and aimed for the exit, squeezing off a few more rounds. Farid yelped and hit the deck again. “Don’t move again!” Jack ordered.
A bullet punctured the lounge chair next to him. Jack rolled back to his stomach, searching for targets. Somewhere in the room a girl kept screaming. A shadow moved across his field of vision. Jack aimed low, firing four times. He was rewarded with an angry bellow and the other Armenian collapsed, his ankles blown away. Jack felt his head clearing at last and he rose to a crouched position, keeping his head below the level of the tables.
Someone somewhere turned on the lights. Jack spotted Farrah in the corner at the same time Farrah spotted him. He was holding the dancer, Tina, by the neck. When he saw Jack he spun in that direction, putting the girl between himself and Jack’s line of fire.
“I don’t know what you want, okay!” Farrah yelled. “But I want Farid. You get him for me or I will kill this girl.”
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 5 P.M. AND 6 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
5:00 P.M. PST Peppermint Club
Jack’s ears were still ringing from the big Armenian’s punches. He took a deep breath and focused. He wasn’t giving up Farid. That was his primary goal. He w
as tempted to just back away, taking Farid out the back door. But Farrah was a cold-blooded killer and in the one hour he’d known the man Jack had developed an intense dislike for him.
He aimed his weapon.
“Get away!” Farrah yelled, seeing him. “I’ll kill her!”
That was everyone’s mistake, Jack thought. Thinking of him as a police officer. Thinking of him as someone who had to play by the rules all the time.
He fired.
The bullet whistled past the stripper’s cheek and entered Farrah’s face, exiting the back of his skull and lodging itself in the plasterboard and taking a significant amount of Farrah’s brain with it. The dancer fainted.
Jack glanced behind him, seeing Farid cowering on the floor. “Don’t go anywhere,” he warned.
Jack hurried to each of the two Armenians. One was dead, but Jack took his weapon anyway. The other was in shock, both his feet dangling from strips of flesh where his ankles had been. Jack kicked his gun away.
From somewhere in the depths of the building, someone yelled. “Get out of here. I called the police!”
“Good,” Jack said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “That’s very good.”
He checked Farrah, too, although there wasn’t much left of him. He tossed the gun aside. The girl, Tina, was out cold, but her breathing was regular and her heart beat was strong.
Jack staggered back over to Farid, who was looking up from the floor in astonishment. “Who the hell are you?”
Jack sat down in a lounge chair next to him. “I’m the guy asking you the questions,” he said. “And before I start asking I’m going to tell you this one time. I have no patience left, so unless you want to end up looking like Farrah over there, you answer me right away. Understand?”
Farid nodded.
Jack asked questions, and this was the story he heard:
Farid Koshbin had been a runner for a few Iranian fences, front men who took stolen and knockoff merchandise and put it into their stores as the real deal. About a year ago he had discovered that he knew enough people to be a valuable contact himself, especially for Persians and Arabs coming over to the United States. He had worked for Farrah several times. Babak Farrah liked to bring over Iranians to work for him, because they relied on him and he could pay them low wages for a year or two before they got wise and quit. Since 9/11, of course, that was harder to do. Farid Koshbin made a little money on the side finding employees for Farrah. He’d learned about eight Persians coming into the country illegally who would need work, so he arranged to help them.