24 Declassified: 02 - Veto Power

by John Whitman

  “Why can’t we set it off here?”

  The second one seemed more annoyed by his partner than by the long climb. “Didn’t you listen? Something about all the metal. It absorbs the electricity or something. It makes the range less.”

  “It’d still do something.”

  “Okay, then you tell Commander Marks.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Jack bristled. That was the voice he was waiting for. Marks was there. He two-stepped the last flight of stairs quietly, under cover of the conversation, and came around the last stairwell to see two men in blue coveralls standing on the stairs, one above and one below the source of their complaining. It was a metal tube, shaped oddly like a torpedo standing on its end. The torpedo was strapped to a wooden base. A small control panel was built into the side of the device. Beyond the two men, Jack saw Brett Marks.

  “Freeze!” he yelled. He laid his gun sights over Marks’s chest.

  Instead of freezing, one of the men drew his own gun and fired. The gunshots rang like thunder in Jack’s ears. But the stairs ruined the militia man’s aim and his shots went high as Jack dropped down and returned fire.

  “Don’t drop it!” Brett Marks yelled, obviously worried about his EMP device. “Get it up here!”

  Jack leaned over the railing to look up again. Marks was looking down, his gun ready. He fired as Jack threw himself back against the wall. The rounds sped down the shaft into oblivion.

  Jack knew he had to stop them soon. If they reached the roof, they could close off the door and hold it against him. Keeping his back to the wall, he spiraled up the stairs, faster now that he wasn’t worried about stealth. The militia men moved slowly, weighed down by their burden. Jack reached the next flight and saw them. Marks leveled his weapon but Jack was ready—he fired, causing Marks to duck for cover. Then Jack paused for aim and put a round through the chest of one of the militia men. He gagged and went down.

  The other militia man panicked. Jack saw him reach for the EMP. For a moment, Jack thought the man had lost his grip. Too late, he realized what the man was doing.

  So did Marks. “No!” he yelled.

  Jack swung his weapon onto the man in the coveralls, who put one hand on the metal railing to maintain his balance while his other hand grabbed a switch and pushed it. Inside the EMP, something thumped like an explosion muffled by walls. At the same time, an intense blast of light blinded Jack, followed by a blood-curdling scream. Jack stumbled backward, panicked that he’d be blind when Marks came at him with another round of gunfire. He blinked, trying to clear the white flash from his sight.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw no white flashes. In fact, he saw nothing but darkness. Complete darkness, blackness devoid of any light whatsoever. The stairwell lights had all gone out.

  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 1 A.M. AND 2 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  1:00 A.M. PST Century City

  Jack was blind. This wasn’t the darkness of nighttime. He was in the deep darkness of tunnels and spaces under the Earth, where no light ever shone. He flapped his hand in front of his face but saw nothing, not even the sense of movement.

  Jack fumbled in his pocket for the flashlight he’d borrowed from the security guard. The flashlight’s battery and wiring were too small to gather up the energy from the EMP, which meant it should still work. He felt for the switch and slid it forward, grateful when the beam shot out like a lance to touch the stairs in front of him. Jack started forward again. Half a flight up he reached the EMP device itself. The torpedo-shaped object was now burned black and the metal had buckled. Beside the platform lay the man in blue coveralls. His skin looked wrinkled and crisp, as though he’d been cooked from the inside out. Jack knew very little about EMPs, but he guessed it wasn’t wise to be too close to the device when it went off, especially if your hand was touching a conductor like the metal guard rails.

  A gunshot rang out, followed instantly by a sting like a sharp burn across the top of Jack’s hand. He dropped the flashlight and leaped backward into the darkness, landing badly on the stairs and stumbling backward onto the flat of a landing until his back hit the wall. Two more rounds shook the walls, and Jack heard the bullets chip the concrete steps near the flashlight.

  Quietly, he crept forward. He grabbed the light in a quick movement and switched it off, then jumped away as more rounds whined and chipped the concrete around him. Flecks of cement stung his face.

  “Give it up, Brett!” Jack roared up the shaft. “Your EMP is done now. There’s nothing left!”

  “There’s always freedom!” Marks yelled back. Jack tried to locate him, but couldn’t. The militia leader’s voice echoed off all the walls, directionless. “All in all, I think I’ll stay out of jail.”

  Jack crept up the stairs, trying to stay quiet, and to move under Marks’s voice when he talked. He was sure Marks was doing the same thing—otherwise he wouldn’t have talked at all.

  “You did better than I thought, Jack. I don’t know how you found out about Century City.”

  “I always said you militia assholes were redneck idiots,” Jack replied.

  “What does that say about the CTU agent we strung along for six months?”

  Jack felt his blood boil. He’d tried to get a rise out of Marks, but Marks had turned the tables on him. He tiptoed up a few more steps, reaching the next landing by feel. Marks didn’t speak for a moment, but Jack risked another few steps, so quiet he couldn’t hear himself walk. He counted steps until he reached the next landing, floating like a ghost in the darkness. He listened but heard nothing. He must be near the top now. He hadn’t heard a door open, so he knew that Marks must be close by.

  “You get lost, Jack?” Marks called.

  But the voice was practically in Jack’s ear! He’d climbed up right next to the militia leader and neither of them had realized it. Jack fired twice.

  The muzzle flash illuminated the landing. Jack got the briefest glimpse of Marks’s shocked face in the lightning-brief strobe. Marks returned fire. Jack felt a round tug at his shirt near his ribs. He stumbled away, firing twice more blindly. He heard footsteps run up the stairs.

  1:09 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  “Everybody just calm down!” Kelly Sharpton yelled. He was standing in the abyss. All around him seemed like primordial chaos—darkness filled with cries of surprise, indignation, and terror. He gathered himself. “Calm down!” he roared in a deep, commanding voice.

  The chaos subsided into mere darkness. Kelly heard people shuffling around him. He knew that Jessi was close by, and Nina Myers. But he couldn’t see anything.

  “It’s obviously a blackout,” he said into the void.

  “Why haven’t the backup generators kicked in?” Ryan Chappelle replied. “We’re supposed to be immune to power outages from the city.”

  “I’m going to take a wild guess,” Kelly replied, “and say that someone set off an EMP device and we got hit. The EMP will have fried every circuit we’ve got. Anything that had computer circuitry, or was linked to an antennae array, you can probably write off, including the system that sent signals to our backup generators. But anything that had its own battery power and was independent of the main system will work. So look for flashlights and battery-powered radios. The generators themselves should be working, but we’ll have to crank them up by hand.”

  “What do you know, Jack was right!” Nina Myers yelled.

  Yes, he was right, Kelly said. And if his watch had been right, just before everything stopped, Jack had succeeded in doing something ...because Marks and Newhouse had set off their EMP an hour early.

  1:19 A.M. PST Century City

  Jack slid his hand along the wall as he climbed the stairs, moving with painstaking slowness that last flight until his hand touched a steel wall. He groped around until he felt a door handle. He hesitated. Were they waiting for him on the other side? Had they
already bolted down some other stairs?

  There was only one way to find out. Jack pulled the door open and dived forward. Gunfire pelted the door, the door frame, and the ground all around him. He rolled across the tarmac-like surface of the rooftop, came up to his knees, and rolled again as more gunshots chopped at the ground around him. Rounds were coming off close, and he realized that compared to the utter darkness of the stairwell, the night darkness of Los Angeles provided Marks with enough illumination to see him.

  The rooftop of the North Tower was a small forest of utility sheds, ventilation grills, and antennae. Jack dived behind a ventilation shaft for cover. He caught his breath and ejected the magazine from his SigSauer, smacking another into place.

  “You’re the idiot, Brett!” he yelled into the darkness.

  “Why’s that, Jack?” Brett Marks asked in amusement. His voice came from somewhere on Jack’s right. Jack moved in that direction as silently as he could.

  “This stunt is just going to make the Federal government do more of the things you hate. They’ll crack down more. They’ll take more power for themselves.”

  “The people have to remember their power, Jack!” Marks shot back. “Either we’ll set an example for them to follow, or we’ll force the tyrants to become so ruthless the people have to act!”

  “The tyrants are elected by the people,” Jack pointed out.

  “Elected by corporations. Elected by political parties. Not by people.” Marks’s voice was moving again. Jack had trouble following it through the forest of rooftop structures. “We are the government, Jack.

  Me and people like me. We cast the final vote. I intend to make sure the people remember that we have the final veto. We can make this country a real republic, greater than Rome ever was.”

  Marks had stopped. Now Jack thought he knew where the militia man was hiding, behind a man-sized vent spout curved at the top. “Rome had tyrants. Dictators. That can’t be a good example for you,” he called out, using his voice to cover his footsteps.

  “You really have to get some education, Jack,” Marks sneered. “Before it allowed dictators in, Rome was a republic for five hundred years. Kings were not allowed in the city. Tribunes were allowed to serve only two years in office. It wasn’t so bad.”

  Jack caught a glimpse of Marks’s silhouette. He rose to his feet and took aim.

  Suddenly an arm clamped around his neck from behind and he felt the muzzle of a gun press against the side of his head. “Hello, Jack Bauer,” hissed Frank Newhouse. “Drop your gun.”

  1:28 A.M. PST Air Force One

  Air Force One was wheels up, banking left and leaving the city lights behind them. The President had just closed his eyes in his cabin when there was a knock on the door. He grunted, sat up in his bed, and flicked on the light. “Come.”

  Avery Taylor stepped into the room. Despite the hour, he looked as crisp and professional as usual. “Mr. President, sorry to disturb you, but I want to keep you informed. There’s been a blackout in Los Angeles. We’re currently assessing the risk, but there is some small chance that we’ll change our flight plan.”

  Barnes groaned. “What kind of blackout? Why would it be a danger to us?”

  “It shouldn’t be, sir, but it’s our job...”

  “I understand, Avery, but unless there’s a direct threat to this airplane from a blackout, I want us to take the most direct path. I need to get to San Diego without complications. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  1:29 A.M. PST Century City

  Newhouse’s left arm had closed like a clamp over Bauer’s throat, while his right hand held a gun to his head. Jack dropped his gun as ordered. Newhouse laughed in his ear. “How does it feel to be behind the curve every single time?”

  “Like this,” Jack said.

  With his right hand, Jack reached back and snatched at Newhouse’s gun, pulling it forward and off his head, pointing the muzzle forward. A round went off right near his head, deafening him. Jack’s left hand clamped the hammer side of the gun. At the same time, Jack punched his hands forward and his hips backward into Newhouse, stretching him. Jack snapped the gun from Newhouse’s hand, then jabbed his right elbow back into Newhouse’s gun, then into his face. He heard Newhouse’s nose collapse with a satisfying crunch.

  But Newhouse was no weekend warrior. Even as he dropped from the blow, he kicked Jack’s legs out from under him. Jack hit the deck hard and felt Newhouse on top of him in an instant. Newhouse pounded Jack with a hard punch; a second punch came and Jack slipped it. Newhouse howled as his knuckles pounded the tarmac. Jack bucked his hips and rolled, feeling Newhouse grab for the gun as he did. The weapon slipped from Jack’s hand and Newhouse rolled over, aiming the gun at him with a grin. He pulled the trigger.

  The gun was jammed. Jack dropped an elbow into Newhouse’s bloody face. Jack thought that might be the end of him, but Newhouse only grunted. His reached up and dug his fingers into Jack’s face and eyes. Jack winced and pulled Newhouse’s claws away, and before he knew it Newhouse had kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling backward.

  Jack rolled with the kick and came up to his feet. For a moment he lost Newhouse among the pipes, but a movement on his left caught his attention. Instead of shying away he attacked, hurling himself at the movement and catching Frank off guard. Newhouse staggered backward. Jack grabbed him by the neck and kneed him twice in the stomach. He tried to deliver another knee, but Newhouse caught his leg and dumped him on his back again. Jack felt his left shoulder give. He stabbed upward with his right hand, feeling his fingers sink into the thick jelly of Newhouse’s eye. Newhouse squealed and pushed away, straightening his arms. Jack grabbed one of his arms and spun on his back, catching the arm and shoulder between his legs. He pulled Newhouse’s arm straight, then arched his back, snapping the arm at the elbow. Newhouse screamed.

  Gunfire echoed across the rooftop. Jack rolled away and felt something under his back. He grabbed for it and found his Sig in his hands. He came up firing in the direction of the muzzle flashes. Marks yelped and retreated.

  Jack crawled back toward Newhouse, who lay unmoving on the tarmac. In the dark, Jack groped his way to Newhouse’s neck and checked for a pulse. There was none. One of Marks’s bullets had found the wrong target.

  In the darkness, Jack heard a door open and close. Marks was running. Jack took off after him.

  Marks had run down the southeast stairwell. Jack opened the door but didn’t stand in the frame. There was no gunfire. Jack plunged down into the darkness.

  The door swung shut behind him and Jack was in that same pitch black. Now and then he heard shuffling below him, but he didn’t try to find it, nor did he light his flashlight.

  As he pursued Marks, he tried to anticipate the militia leader’s next move. He might just try to escape and go to ground, but he’d also planned long and hard on this plot.

  Two EMP devices, Jack reminded himself. They’d stolen two from Cal Tech. Did Marks have a backup plan?

  It was likely. Marks had demonstrated the ability to plan for almost every contingency. They’d had two vans at Cal Tech in case surveillance picked them up. They’d used the Iranians as decoys. Marks had even had a plan to throw Babak Farrah at them as an Iranian intelligence officer in case he needed to.

  That was Jack’s safest bet: Marks had the other EMP

  device stowed somewhere, and he’d try to use it now. He would try to get back to the garage and escape. For Jack, that meant descending over forty flights in total darkness. He started down into the pit.

  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 2 A.M. AND 3 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  2:00 A.M. PST Century City

  Jack’s senses had become as attuned to darkness as they could be. But the going was agonizingly slow. At last, somewhere below him, a door opened. As it creaked shut, Jack caught the faintest hint of light— Marks had a flashlight of h
is own.

  Jack risked his own light, and with the flashlight he made better time. He reached P6 and threw the door open, again hesitating in case of gunfire. Then he ran out into the parking area just in time to hear an engine rev and headlights go on. Jack angled toward the headlights. He shut off his own flashlight just in time. A car roared by and muzzle flashes accompanied the sound of shots, but Jack had moved off line and Marks’s shots were wild. His car peeled away.

  Jack flicked his flashlight on again and ran toward the white van. Near it, he saw that the Chevy Camaro was gone. On a hunch, he ran to the Nova. It was unlocked. He jumped inside. He placed the flashlight on the floor, angled upward, and reached underneath to hotwire the car. The wiring was basic, but the wires themselves were new, and Jack guessed what Marks had planned. The Camaro and the Nova were old cars, with very little wiring that was susceptible to the EMP device. Marks and Newhouse had planned their escape well.

  The Nova’s engine roared to life and Jack peeled out, headlights illuminating his way through the darkness.

  His tires squealed all the way up the circular ramps that led out of the foundation of the building. He scraped the corners several times but ignored it. He needed to catch up to Marks.

  At the top of the parking structure he caught him. Marks barreled through the wooden gate and out onto the street, making a hard right turn. Jack followed a hundred yards behind him, but now he flicked off his headlights, hiding himself from Marks.

  The streets were black. Not a streetlight or a traffic signal was working. All the buildings were dark. The only artificial light Jack could see was the glow of Marks’s headlights ahead of him. There wouldn’t have been much traffic at that hour anyway, of course, but now there was none. There were only a few obstacles in the road—cars that had shut down in mid-transit when the EMP went off. Any car that relied on electronics for its functions—onboard computers for ignition, braking, suspension—had shut down. Fortunately for Jack, the streetlights had been, to some degree, replaced by starlight. On any given night in Los Angeles, ambient light wiped out almost all the stars. But tonight the ambient light itself had been wiped out. Jack saw the silhouettes of stalled cars, and sometimes of confounded drivers, as he followed his prey.