24 Declassified: 08 - Collateral Damage

by Marc Cerasini

  In the purse, Darnell spotted a digital camera.

  “Yo! Luis!” he called, tossing the purse to his partner.

  “Take her stuff so it can go with her.”

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  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

  BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

  9:00 A.M. AND 10:00 A.M.

  EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  9:02:11 A.M. EDT

  Secure Conference Room

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  Jack Bauer checked his watch and tossed the file onto the conference table.

  “I’ve heard enough about Kurmastan,” he said sharply.

  “You still haven’t told me why Director Holman and Deputy Director Foy are missing. Or why Holman’s computer is locked so tight not even Morris O’Brian can break through.”

  The woman lowered her eyes. “I really don’t know—”

  “You’re lying,” Jack said evenly. “You’re hiding something—maybe something your bosses did or are doing.”

  C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 37

  Layla’s dark eyes stared at the floor.

  “You can’t protect them, Agent Abernathy,” Jack said quietly. “If you try, you’ll only go down, too.”

  The woman glanced away, tightly folded her arms. Then she met Jack’s gaze.

  “Well,” she began, “I think maybe I’m the reason there are so many security protocols on Brice Holman’s computer.”

  Jack drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Go on.”

  “Six weeks ago, I was assigned to help open this office, but I found Holman’s activities to be overly guarded.”

  “What do you mean? Be specific.”

  “He’d disappear without explanation—and then with explanations that began to sound suspect. So two weeks ago, I got curious and cracked his files. I couldn’t break the copy protection program or download anything, but I got a pretty good look. Brice believes a terror attack originating from Kurmastan is imminent. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it to protect the country.”

  “Why didn’t he issue an alert?” Jack asked. “Talk to Langley?”

  “I told you before, Agent Bauer. Holman was ordered to halt all surveillance on Kurmastan. And because I violated his computer, I’m afraid I may be the reason Brice doesn’t trust the staff assigned to him now.”

  “He figured out you broke into his system?”

  Layla nodded. “The next time I tried to gain access, he’d erected all kinds of new security barriers. I think my actions made him paranoid.”

  The conference room’s intercom buzzed. “I’d better take this,” she said.

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  “Put it on speaker,” Jack commanded. He noticed her eyes flash with annoyance, but she did what Jack asked.

  “Abernathy here.”

  “This is Peter Randall in Communications. I just received a strange call from Deputy Director Foy’s cell.”

  Layla leaned forward. “Where is—”

  “This is Special Agent Jack Bauer from CTU Los Angeles,” Jack interrupted. “What did the Deputy Director say?”

  “That’s what’s strange, sir,” replied Pete Randall over the speakerphone. “Agent Foy didn’t say anything. There was silence, followed by the sound of a siren. Finally, I heard voices, then the line went dead.”

  Jack and Layla exchanged looks.

  “Did you trace the signal?” Jack asked.

  “That’s standard procedure,” the comm tech replied.

  “But the call was so short we can’t triangulate.”

  “I’ll be right down,” Jack replied, ending the call. Then he snatched the receiver and dialed Brice Holman’s office.

  On the eighth ring, O’Brian picked up.

  “What do you bloody want?” O’Brian barked. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “It’s Bauer.”

  “Oh. Hello, boss,” Morris said smoothly.

  “I need you at the comm station. Now.”

  Morris groaned. “Can’t Almeida handle it? I’ve got my hands full with the locks on the Director’s computer. This Holman person is nearly as devious as you are. Needless to say, I haven’t quite cracked it—though I’m close.”

  “It can wait,” Jack replied. “I need you to trace a cell C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 39

  phone signal. The call didn’t last long so there might not be much of a trail.”

  Morris snorted. “Child’s play compared to this, Jack-o.

  I’ll be there on the double.”

  Agent Abernathy led Jack down a flight of steel steps, onto the floor of the Operations Center. There were no offices, only workstations inside cubicles. When they arrived at the communications station, Morris was already there.

  He stood beside a lanky, thirty-something technician with a receding hairline and nervously blinking eyes partially obscured behind small, round glasses.

  Jack extended his hand. “Peter Randall? I’m Jack Bauer.

  Have you retrieved the memory cache of Deputy Director Foy’s call?”

  Randall nodded. “I have, sir, but the call lasted less than two minutes, so triangulation will be difficult, even if we can isolate her digital trace inside the phone company’s transmitters.”

  “You have signature protocols, correct?” Morris asked.

  “Of course. Each member of this unit has intelli-signatures unique to them embedded in their cell phones.”

  Jack knew the answer to the next question, but asked anyway. “Have you tried to locate Foy using the GPS chip in her cell?”

  The comm tech frowned. “She deactivated it, sir. I can’t imagine why.”

  “I can.” Jack glanced at Layla. “She didn’t want CTU to know where she was.”

  “I think I’ve got something,” said Morris.

  Jack peered over his shoulder, at the high-definition 40

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  monitor. Morris tapped a few keys and a map of New Jersey appeared, the telecommunications grid superim-posed over it.

  “Deputy Director Foy’s call came through a forwarding station in this little town here.” Morris tapped the screen.

  “Pissant. Pissant, New Jersey.”

  Peter Randall cleared his throat. “That’s Passaic, O’Brian.

  Passaic, New Jersey. It’s an American Indian word.”

  Morris squinted theatrically. “I must be going goggle-eyed. I swear it says Pissant.”

  “Get on with it, Morris,” Jack said tightly.

  “Anyway, from the forwarding station in Passaic, I traced the signal back to communications grid A–NE 8804.

  That’s right here—” Morris tapped the screen again.

  “Newark,” Jack whispered. He faced Layla.

  “Retrieve the patient admission records from all the hospitals around Newark, see if anyone fitting Agent Foy’s description has been treated in the past hour. Contact the Newark Police Department and the city morgue, too . . .”

  “On it,” Layla said, punching keys.

  Jack laid a hand on Morris’s shoulder. “I’m leaving for an hour, to check on that other matter,” he said quietly.

  “The one that delayed us this morning.”

  “Bugger,” Morris murmured. “Don’t you want backup?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not from this office. You and Tony hold down the fort until I get back. I’ll be in touch if I run into problems.”

  Morris frowned. “Careful, Jack. I understand New York can be a very rough town.”

  C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 41

  9:39:20 A.M. EDT

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  “Agent Almeida? I have the system schematics that you requested.”

  Tony nodded, his gaze fixed on the monitor. “Yeah, thanks,” he muttered. “Put them on the desk.”

  “Agent Almeida?”

  It took a moment for the voice to penetr
ate his concentration. Finally, Tony looked up, to find a young woman with dark, curly hair and wide, oval eyes standing over him. She offered Tony a nervous smile.

  “I just wanted to say . . . if you need anything . . . anything at all, I’ll be in the next cubicle.” She pointed to her workstation with a thumb over her shoulder. “My name’s Delgado, Rachel Delgado. Like I said, call me. If you need me.”

  The woman wore black slacks and platform shoes. Her tight, white blouse had a low neckline, showing more than ample cleavage. Tony shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “Ah . . . thanks.”

  As she walked away, Tony watched her swaying hips—

  until Rachel Delgado glanced over her shoulder and caught him peeking.

  Tony quickly shifted his gaze—then the computer beeped, and it was back to work. He grabbed the schematics that Ms. Delgado had brought him and looked them over. In a few minutes, he’d isolated the problem, which turned out to be a glitch with the physical system and not a software issue.

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  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  Tony stood, hung his jacket over the back of the desk chair, along with his shoulder holster and the Glock inside it. Then he rolled up his sleeves and used a screwdriver from the console kit to open the access panel behind the computer.

  The guts of the system revealed, Tony began to physically reroute the entire network through a different set of servers by reconnecting several dozen ports to ultrahigh bandwidth links.

  9:49:55 A.M. EDT

  Mulberry Street

  After a short cab ride, Jack Bauer exited the taxi on the corner of Canal and Mulberry. At the teeming intersection, he considered his next move.

  It was clear to Jack that someone at CTU New York had tipped off De Salvo and his crew. They knew about Jack’s arrival in the city, and enough of his schedule to set up an ambush in the middle of Hudson Street in broad daylight.

  Or did the leak originate somewhere else, out of the Tacoma office, perhaps? Jack decided to have a long talk with George Mason after this was over.

  Angelo De Salvo had harbored a deep grudge against Jack—for good reason. Jack had led the siege in L.A. that had ended with the deaths of De Salvo’s father and two brothers.

  Angelo hadn’t been with his family during that take-down, but he was a career criminal with a long rap sheet.

  C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 43

  He was also a hunted man, and according to O’Brian’s research, De Salvo’s alias—Angel Salinas—never had more than nine hundred dollars in his bank account. So there was no way he could have paid for the services of professional hit men.

  So who had helped him mount this morning’s ambush?

  De Salvo was dead now, but whoever had helped him was still very much alive. Jack intended to find the source of the payoff money. He would start with the dead man’s employer, Fredo Mangella.

  Jack walked down Mulberry Street, the main drag of New York’s shrunken Little Italy. The street was narrow but clean and colorful, with century-old brick buildings of six and eight stories, housing Italian restaurants, cafés, and gourmet pastry shops at street level. There were iron streetlamps and sidewalk tables with Campari umbrellas, but few tourists were around at this hour of the morning.

  Most of the pedestrians were Asian, heading toward the streets around Mulberry, which belonged to Chinatown, a large area of Lower Manhattan that had grown even larger over the years with the influx of Asian immigrants, reduc-ing Little Italy to no more than a few blocks.

  Morris had provided an exact address for Mangella’s chic new eatery, but Jack found the place difficult to miss.

  Volaré sat halfway down Mulberry, inside an old building that obviously had been gutted and reconstructed with a two-story-high facade of glass framed by gleaming chrome.

  The restaurant wasn’t open, but Jack spotted a tall man entering through the front door. He wore sunglasses and 44

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  a dark suit, had a pallid complexion, and wore his white-blond hair long, just past his shoulders.

  Jack watched the place a few more minutes from across the street. Then he moved to enter the restaurant.

  Volaré’s interior was large and airy, with a ceiling high enough for an authentic Italian racing plane from the 1930s to be suspended above the perfectly placed tables.

  On the ground floor, double doors to the kitchen were set in a shiny chrome wall beside an Art Deco chrome-plated bar. Jack spied an upper balcony with silver rails and a spiral staircase that flowed down to the main dining area.

  There were no tables on the balcony, only a single door at the end of it.

  For a moment no one appeared. Then a smiling woman exited the kitchen. “How can I help you?” she asked.

  Elegant and waiflike, the thirty-something woman spoke with an unidentifiable European accent.

  Jack forced a smile. “My name’s Jack Bello, of Gardenia Cheese in Vermont. I was wondering if I could speak with Mr. Mangella about sampling our excellent product?”

  For the briefest second the woman glanced at the door on the balcony. “I’m afraid Mr. Mangella is quite busy.

  Perhaps—”

  “I’m only in town for the day, and I just need a moment of his time,” Jack insisted.

  The woman’s smile faded, but she relented. “I’ll see what I can do. Wait here, Mr. Bello.”

  She turned on her heels and walked through the kitchen doors. Jack immediately moved through the dining room and ascended the spiral staircase. He crossed the narrow C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 45

  balcony and paused at the door. Carefully he tried the knob, but it was locked. Then Jack pressed his ear against the door. He heard voices inside.

  “The changeover has been made,” a man said. “I’m catching a noon flight to Milan, out of JFK.”

  Jack strained to hear the other speaker’s reply, but the second voice was so soft and raspy, he couldn’t make out the words.

  “Don’t worry,” the first man said. “I’ll stay in Europe indefinitely. My assets here will lose their value after this, so I don’t anticipate returning—”

  A harsh cry rose from the dining room. “Hey, what the hell are you doing up there?”

  Jack looked down and saw the bald man with gold teeth, the one in the cab who’d tried to murder him this morning.

  The urge to shoot him was strong, but Jack had to play it smart. He was here for information, not revenge. So he tamped down his rage.

  But the cold play was blown anyway. Gold Teeth recognized Jack, too.

  “Dominick! Petey! We’ve got trouble,” he cried, reaching for the police special tucked in his belt.

  Jack quickly turned and slammed his shoulder against the locked door. It broke inward, and he stumbled across the threshold into a tiny office with a cherrywood desk and Tiffany lamps.

  Jack scanned the room for an escape route. There were no windows, only another door on an adjacent wall. Standing by that door was the pale man with the white-blond hair and the dark suit—the man Jack had spotted enter-46

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  ing the restaurant a few minutes ago. His sunglasses were gone now; his strangely pinkish eyes blinked in surprise.

  Behind an open laptop, an extremely portly man struggled to his feet, face flushed with outrage. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  Jack shifted his gaze to Fredo Mangella behind the desk. “My name is Jack Bauer. I’m an agent in the Counter Terrorist Unit. I need to speak with you—”

  Jack heard clanging footsteps, as several men surged up the spiral staircase. He leveled his Glock at Mangella.

  “Call your men off,” he demanded. “I’m not here to arrest you. I just want to ask you some questions.”

  Fredo Mangella remained silent, considering Jack’s words. There was slight movement, a drawer opening.

  Then a weapon appeared in the fat man’s hand.

  Jack shot Fredo Mangella twice
in the chest. As the restaurateur dropped back into his chair, the standing white-haired man pulled a .45 and aimed it at Jack.

  Before he could fire, the door next to him opened, striking the Albino’s arm. His .45’s barrel dropped as the woman who’d greeted Jack appeared. She stepped forward, preventing Jack from getting a clean shot, then screamed when she saw the guns, screamed louder when she saw Mangella’s corpse flopped in the chair.

  Jack heard the shouting voices of Mangella’s men. He slammed the broken door shut with a spinning kick, then pressed his back against the wall next to it.

  “Don’t move,” he cried, trying again to draw a bead on the Albino.

  But Jack couldn’t shoot. The pale man had curled his C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 47

  long arm around the woman’s throat and was using her as a shield.

  “Pull the trigger and she dies,” he rasped, his .45 back up. “Throw your weapon onto the desk and step away from the door or you’ll die, and then she dies.”

  Looking into the Albino’s ghostly eyes, Jack knew the man wasn’t bluffing. He tossed his Glock on the desk beside the laptop and raised his hands.

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  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

  BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

  10:00 A.M. AND 11:00 A.M.

  EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  10:00:06 A.M. EDT

  Rural Route 12

  Hunterdon County, New Jersey

  “Hang back, Leight, I don’t want them making us.”

  For ninety minutes now, FBI Agent Jason Emmerick had been driving across the Jersey countryside, his twenty-six-year-old partner, Douglas Leight, at the wheel of their white Saturn.

  “We’ve been following this Hummer since it left the airport,” complained Leight after they hit another bone-jarring bump. “If they didn’t make us, they’re blind.”

  They were off the highway now, surrounded by trees C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 49

  and plowed fields, wooden fences and cows. The rural road was narrow and dusty and in disrepair.

  “It may not matter, either way,” Emmerick said. An African American in his late forties with a lean, strong build, Emmerick was clad in pressed khakis and an Izod shirt, a navy-blue blazer over it. He reached into the blazer, his hand brushing the butt of his weapon as he pulled out a pack of Juicy Fruit. “Now that their precious package has arrived from Montreal, I don’t think these guys will be changing plans.”