24 Declassified: 01 - Operation Hell Gate

by Marc A. Cerasini

  Helpless, Caitlin whispered a prayer, but refused to look away, choosing to face death squarely. Her determination seemed to shake the youth. He hesitated, the gun wavering.

  Powerful arms reached around the teen. One hand gripped his wrist, yanking the gun barrel to the ceiling. In the other hand, Caitlin saw something long and pointed. With a sickening crunch, Jack Bauer thrust a letter opener into the young man’s throat, twisting the dull blade to rip through tissue, cartilage, bone. The teen tried to cry out. His mouth gaped, but no sound emerged.

  Then the boy’s eyes met Caitlin’s. She watched in horror, her eyes filling with tears as life, awareness faded...until it was extinguished. Silently, Jack lowered the dying teen to the floor, slipping the Uzi from his grasp. Then Jack reached over the twitching assassin, grabbed Caitlin’s wrist hard enough to bruise it. She winced as he jerked her to her feet. Jack’s hand was wet and sticky.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

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  4:45:46 P.M. EDT Office of New York Senator William Cheever Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

  The Honorable William Cheever appeared appropriately senatorial as he read his opening remarks. Sitting behind the shiny expanse of polished desk, framed by twin American flags, he spoke to the video camera in sober, sonorous tones. The Senator addressed six video monitors, each with the face of a different airline CEO or his representative.

  Dennis Spain, out of camera range, ignored Senator Cheever’s opening remarks. He’d heard enough of the man’s banal platitudes to last a lifetime. Fortunately, he would not have to listen to any more of them.

  While the Senator droned on, Spain used the Internet to check the balance of a secret numbered account at Banque Swiss in Zurich, Switzerland. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle when he found that one hundred and fifty million dollars had suddenly appeared in the account, the amount transferred from another account with a Saudi bank in Riyadh.

  Spain knew another payment of the same amount would also be his—all he had to do was type a code, reroute the videoconference to another server, where a different host would take control of the conference.

  He glanced at the monitors. The airline CEOs all seemed to be listening intently, phony smiles plastered across their bland, corporate faces.

  Well, they won’t be smiling much longer.

  Spain thought about all the things a man could do with three hundred million dollars as he carefully entered the prearranged code. Abruptly Senator Cheever’s face was replaced by another. The man’s features were covered by a black ski mask; thick wraparound sunglasses obscured his eyes. A black curtain was the only backdrop. Seated on a stool, the man greeted the electronic assemblage.

  “You don’t need to know my name, though I know all of you.”

  His voice was an automated buzz, altered so much it no longer resembled a human sound.

  “Unless you do as I say, each of your airlines will suffer a severe financial and public relations setback when, in the next two hours, a commercial aircraft from each carrier is shot down with heavy loss of life.

  “Such a tragedy can be avoided. If my demands are met, your planes will be safe—for now. If you choose to disobey me, ignore my conditions, then the calamity that will soon unfold will serve as a powerful object lesson to your industry, and to America.”

  Dennis Spain could hardly contain his amusement. The esteemed Senator from New York was sputtering like the fool that he was. On the monitors, the CEOs registered shock, outrage, disbelief. The masked man continued to speak.

  “The real question is whether you will learn from this attack, or suffer more grief in the future because you continue to ignore our cause...”

  4:48:01 P.M. EDT Prolix Security, Fifth Avenue

  Leading with the Uzi, Jack pulled a shaking Caitlin into the hallway. The lighting was dimmer now. Many of the ceiling’s recessed fluorescent bulbs had

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  been shot out. Bits of plastic and glass shards lay everywhere. In the middle of the debris another man lay dead, his neck twisted to an unnatural angle, eyes wide and staring.

  “There’s one more shooter. Holed up in the corner office,” Jack whispered.

  He gestured for her to duck into a cubicle. She obeyed, then peered around the standing wall to watch Jack move cautiously down the hallway. Just before he reached the corner office, Jack ducked into another cubicle, came out wheeling a desk chair. Renewing his grip on the Uzi, Jack kicked the chair forward. The chair bounced off the closed office door with a loud crash. A burst of automatic weapon fire came from the other side, instantly shredding the wood. The top of the door fell to the floor.

  Jack flattened himself against the wall, fired the Uzi through the opening until the magazine was spent. Then he cast the empty weapon aside, drew his .45 and kicked through the remains of the door, disappearing into the corner office.

  For thirty long seconds, Caitlin waited, listened to the silence. Finally, she emerged from her hiding place and crept carefully down the hall. She peered through the bullet-riddled doorway. Another assassin lay sprawled on his back, arms outstretched. A line of ragged bloody holes had been stitched up his abdomen. The corpse’s eyes were askew, dead lips curled back from yellow teeth. Then she saw Jack, hunched over a man in a thick leather chair. He wore a tailored suit, now ruined by powder burns and bloodstains. He was an elderly man. Silver hair framed a substantial hole in the top of his skull. Bifocals dangled from his ear.

  “Mother of God. Who is he?”

  “Felix Tanner.” Jack tossed the dead man’s open wallet onto the desk, but Caitlin focused her attention on the ragged hole in Jack’s jacket, the blood seeping through the tear in the sleeve. She saw he was wincing.

  “You’re hurt!” She moved to help him, but Jack pulled away, searching the desktop.

  “There’s got to be a clue, something in this office that will tell me who’s directing this terrorist cell. Whoever it is, he’s covering his tracks. Felix Tanner probably knew the man’s identity or he wouldn’t have been murdered.”

  Caitlin watched Jack as he desperately tore through the office, scattering papers across the desk, over the dead body on the floor.

  Her eyes drifted to a television monitor in the corner of the office. It was on, though there was no sound. The man on the screen wore bulky black clothes and a ski mask. He stared into the camera as his lips moved.

  “Jack? Come here. I think you should see this.”

  Jack stared at the monitor, adjusted the sound. He and Caitlin both listened as the masked man explained that he would not shoot down any commercial aircraft if each major airline transferred five hundred million dollars to a numbered Swiss account in the next sixty minutes.

  “This isn’t terrorism,” said Jack Bauer. “It’s extortion.”

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  4:58:25 P.M. EDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  A pall had descended over the Situation Room as the Threat Clock ran down to zero hour. The room was quiet, all eyes on the wall-sized HDTV monitor. The massive screen was broken up into five sections—each displayed live surveillance video feeds from locations inside the perimeters of Logan Airport in Boston, Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., O’Hare in Chicago, and Los Angeles International Airport just a few miles from CTU headquarters. One section in the middle of the screen was still dark.

  “I don’t see New York. Why don’t I see New York?” Ryan Chappelle snapped, his voice betraying nervous tension.

  “The satellite is almost in position,” Nina replied. A moment later, crystal clear satellite imagery focused on a section of LaGuardia Airport.

  “What about JFK?” Ryan asked.

  “We’re blind. Georgi Timko claimed he didn’t have the resources to set up camera surveillance, and the NSA would only allow us access to one satellite.”

  “I don’t like relying on some Russian mobster—”

  “Ukrainian,” Doris interrupted.

  “Some Ukrainian m
obster, just because Jack Bauer trusts him.”

  Nina frowned. “Face reality, Ryan. Without local resources, what choice did we have?”

  “We’re at fifty-nine seconds,” Jamey Farrell announced.

  Ryan stared at the huge screen as he spoke into a headset. “All CTU tactical units report. Is everyone in position?”

  “Boston, ready,” said Milo Pressman from a workstation. On his screen he watched a grid map of Logan Airport, where a blinking blip represented the CTU tactical team lying in ambush for the terrorists to arrive.

  “D.C., ready,” said a red-eyed Cindy Carlisle, the

  only survivor from Cyber Unit Team Alpha. “O’Hare, ready,” said Jamey Farrell. “New York City, ready,” said Doris. “Georgi says

  his teams are in place at both airports.” “LAX, ready,” said the voice of Tony Almeida,

  speaking from the ambush site at the airport. “Ten seconds,” said Nina. “Nine...eight ...” “I see activity on the service road,” said Jamey.

  “Positive contact at O’Hare . . .” “Six ...five...” “Contact at JFK,” Doris cried. “I hear gunfire.” On the HDTV screen, the satellite captured real-

  time images—flashes of gunfire, moving cars, an ex

  plosion. Eerily, there was no sound. “Three ...two ...” “Gunfire at Logan. The tactical team is already

  moving,” yelled Milo. “Zero...”

  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. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  5:00:06 P.M. EDT Los Angeles International Airport

  A voice crackled over Tony Almeida’s headset. “We have contact. Two black Ford Explorers, coming in from the south. You should be able to see them in thirty seconds.”

  “Jamming?” Tony asked.

  “Since they entered the perimeter their cell phones and radios have been jammed,” the voice replied. “Not that they noticed.”

  Tony lowered the binoculars and stepped back into hiding.

  “I see them on the service road,” he said softly.

  Tony stood with Captain Schneider and a member of Blackburn’s tactical assault team between two empty shipping containers the size of semitrucks. Other members of the CTU tactical team were also hidden—behind a cluster of aircraft signal lights, in a storm drain under the runway, inside a small concrete utility building. All wore black overalls and thick body armor and were heavily armed. Jessica Schneider’s left arm was in a sling, wrapped tightly against her chest.

  Captain Schneider squinted at the tiny screen on the PDA in her hand. “They’re moving into position next to runway six, right where the data from the memory stick said they’d go.”

  “Get ready. We move as soon as they exit the vehicles. I want snipers to take out the drivers so no one gets away,” Tony commanded.

  “Roger,” said Blackburn from inside the concrete building.

  “Ready to go,” said Special Agent Rosetti from his hiding place under the runway.

  “Snipers in position, aiming at targets,” reported the men at the signal lights.

  Tony glanced at Captain Schneider. Under the harsh Southern California sun, her face was pale and drawn. Sweat beaded her upper lip, which trembled slightly. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Maybe I should sit this one out,” Jessica replied. “My arm . . .”

  Tony grasped the problem immediately. Captain Schneider was gun-shy. Not frightened, exactly. Just rattled. She’d been wounded. Now she held back, hesitated to get back into the saddle.

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  “Come on,” Tony said with a smile. “I brought you all the way to the ball. The least you can do is dance.”

  Jessica smiled back at him, and Tony saw some of her old spirit return. “You do go on, Special Agent Almeida. Why, I think you could turn a girl’s head.”

  Tony fixed her with his gaze. “Don’t go soft on me now, Captain. I was just starting to get back that old semper fi spirit. Anyway, you could take down these cholos with one hand tied behind your back.”

  Captain Schneider grinned. “Well, if you put it like that...”

  Her voice trailed off as she drew her Marine-issue .45. Tony peered out from between the two metal containers. The terrorists for hire—members of the Manolos, a Mexican street gang Dante Arete recruited out of South Central—had exited their vehicles and were setting up the missile launcher.

  Tony spoke into the microphone. “Snipers take aim. Tactical Team, move on my command...”

  5:07:53 P.M. EDT John F. Kennedy International Airport

  Georgi Timko slung the AK–47 over his shoulder and stepped over to the bullet-riddled SUV. Safety glass lay scattered on the ground, sparkling like spilled jewels in the afternoon sun. Inside the SUV’s open bay, a young Afghani’s dead arms dangled over the edge of the truck bed. The Ukrainian dragged the man to the ground and sat down in the door of the truck with a satisfied sigh. Other armed men circled the perimeter, checking inside the vehicles, the contents of the dead men’s pockets.

  In the distance, beyond the shattered missile launcher, the airport shimmered in the June heat. No one had come, no one had even heard the shooting as Georgi’s men ambushed the terrorists while jets roared overhead. Now the fight was over, the threat ended.

  Timko felt a presence at his side. “Vodka, Comrade Georgi?”

  His eyes went wide as he faced Yuri. “Yuri, do you know this is the first time you’ve spoken to me since the day I hired you two years ago. And this is the first time you addressed me by name, ever.”

  Old Yuri shrugged. His grin bared rotten teeth. “What is there to talk about. The job I have stinks. I sit around all day, wait for trouble. I bring you trays of food and brew hot tea. It’s boring. I should make it more boring by speaking to you?”

  Yuri handed his boss a metal flask. “Drink,” he grunted.

  Georgi took a deep gulp. Yuri sat next to him, gazing at the dead Afghanis.

  “It was good this happened,” said Yuri, nodding. “I was becoming complacent in my job. I needed a challenge.”

  5:11:59 P.M. EDT CEO Felix Tanner’s office Prolix Security, Fifth Avenue

  Jack and Caitlin watched the monitor. The man in the ski mask was issuing complicated instructions for the transfer of the ransom money.

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  Jack’s cell chirped. He answered, heard Ryan Chappelle’s exuberant voice. “We got them, Jack. Every cell. In Washington the tactical team took most of them alive, same in Boston. In Chicago and LAX we had to take them out. And your Russian friend—”

  “Ukrainian,” a young woman’s voice cried out on Ryan’s end.

  “—they shot up the remains of the New York City cell at JFK. The threat is over Jack. We did it!”

  “What about LaGuardia?” Jack demanded.

  “Nothing, Jack. Timko’s men were waiting but the terrorists were a no-show. Nina thinks you may have taken out that cell yourself, back at Wexler Business Storage.”

  Jack recalled the men he’d battled. Most of them were old. Some had missing limbs, eyes. “I don’t think so, Ryan.”

  “Maybe they got cold feet, Jack. Whatever happened, the threat is over.”

  “Not quite.” Jack told Ryan about the video conference, the masked man’s blackmailing threat, which was continuing as he spoke. At the end of the conversation with Chappelle, Jack addressed Jamey Farrell. “Listen to me, you can trace the digital video feed to its source, just tap into Prolix Security’s computer system.”

  “I’ll need access to the computers in that office,” Jamey replied.

  Jack moved to the desktop PC, discovered Felix Tanner had logged on to his computer before he’d been murdered. Following Jamey’s instructions, Jack opened a back-door channel for her to tap into the Prolix computer system.

  “I’ve got the signal,” said Jamey after a few minutes. “But it’s going to take five or ten minutes to trace it back to a server, and then to the point of origin.
”

  “I doubt he’ll talk much longer,” said Jack. “But try your best.”

  Less than a minute later, the masked man ceased speaking in the middle of a sentence. He touched his ear, as if he were wearing a headset under the mask. Then the screen went black.

  “The signal is gone, Jack,” said Jamey. “I didn’t have enough time to run it down.”

  “Damn!” Jack cursed.

  Ryan came on the line. “Why did the man’s speech end so abruptly?”

  “I think I know why,” said Jack. “He was probably in contact with some or all of the airport missile teams. He knew they’d been neutralized, killed, or captured—and that we might try to trace his signal.”

  “Then we’re out of luck. We’ll never catch the ringleader,” said Ryan.

  “I have one more lead,” Jack replied. “The man who contacted me claiming he was Agent Ferrer was a phony, I’m certain of it. I didn’t let on I figured him out. I went ahead and set up a rendezvous. I’m going there now, with Caitlin for bait. Maybe if I capture this impostor I can make him talk, force him to reveal the leader’s identity and location.”

  “That’s your plan?” Ryan said, incredulous.

  “I’m playing this by ear,” Jack confessed. “I have no other choice.”

  Bauer checked his watch. “I wanted the rendezvous to happen somewhere nice and public, where the impostor would have a hard time making a move against me and escaping. The busiest place in New York City

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  is Grand Central Station at rush hour, so that’s where I’m going...”

  5:29:52 P.M. EDT Astoria, Queens

  Griffin Lynch had driven from LaGuardia’s freight terminal directly to his final destination. Taking the last exit on Grand Central Parkway, the unmarked van bounced along a multi-laned avenue of battered concrete. Directly ahead was the slowly rising entrance ramp to the Triboro Bridge. But Griff wasn’t heading for that elevated toll plaza. Bearing right, he followed a branching road that angled down, all the way to the river’s edge.

  Before reaching the water, Griff came to Astoria Park, a sixty-five-acre stretch of greenery in the borough of Queens that bordered the East River. Griff turned right and followed a narrow street along the park. On his right was an unending line of modest row houses, on his left a wide lawn covered with trees and peppered with benches.