“Bastian Grost is wanted by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal,” Nina continued. “He fled arrest, vanished. Interpol suspected he’d been hired to train terrorist groups in Chechnya.”
“I can believe Grost is training terrorists,” said Jack. “But this type of suicide assault, it doesn’t fit his profile. Drazen’s legions were made up of political opportunists. They’re survivors not suicidal fanatics willing to die for a cause.”
“Unless Grost was brainwashed,” Nina replied, “like Ibn al Farad and Richard Lesser.”
Jack nodded. “Brainwashed by Hasan.”
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 11 P.M. AND 12 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
11:01:01 P.M.PDT Chamberlain Auditorium Sub-Level Three
White House intern Adam Carlisle was worried. Secret Service Agent Craig Auburn had been sweating more than normal. Even in the recessed emergency lights dimly glowing in the walls, Adam could see the man’s face was gray. He didn’t look good.
For the past four hours Craig Auburn had been crouched in a dark corner, huddled with the battered portable phone, black plastic receiver in hand. Every few minutes he would speak in whispered words with someone on the other end of the line. Another Secret Service agent? The FBI? CTU? Adam didn’t know. All
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he knew was that there were probably hundreds of people working feverishly to rescue them from this sub-basement—well, the First Lady Novartov and the Vice President’s wife, anyway.
The two political wives sat at a card table in two folding chairs, the only furniture in the dank, dark sub-basement. They’d kept pretty much to themselves, keeping stiff upper lips.
In the first hour, after they’d left the service elevator, Adam had found a steel lunchbox. Among its contents was an empty thermos. He cleaned it at a spigot mounted in the wall on the opposite end of the sub-basement, the water draining through a circular hole in the inclined floor. He brought the ladies water and asked them to please let him know if they needed anything else. After that, he and fellow intern Megan Gleason had kept pretty much to themselves.
About an hour before, Megan, exhausted from the adrenaline spike of fear followed by inaction, had drifted off to sleep. Now she began to stir. Suddenly she opened her eyes wide. They were filled with panic.
“It’s okay,” Adam whispered, worried she’d scream or something—Special Agent Auburn had cautioned them early and often to keep quiet. At one point, they’d heard crashing sounds and voices echoing through the vents from above, and they knew the terrorists were hunting them.
“What time is it?” Megan asked, sitting up and brushing back her straight brown hair.
“After eleven,” Adam replied.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she whispered.
“You were close to shock. We all were. But the phone still works, and the Special Agent vows they’re coming for us.”
The concrete floor was cold. Megan had lost her heels in the chase and her stockings were shredded, her feet bare. Clad only in a filmy black dress, she began to shiver. Adam took off his evening jacket and wrapped her in it.
“Thanks,” she said, teeth chattering. “God, I’m starved. I didn’t have time to eat anything since this morning.”
Adam smiled. “Look at this,” he whispered conspiratorially. From his jacket’s pocket he pulled a cellophane-wrapped Ho Ho he’d found in that battered lunchbox. “It’s only a day or two past the freshness date, I checked. Frankly I think these things contain so many chemicals they’re eatable after a decade.”
Megan reached for the cake with a shaky hand, then paused. “Shouldn’t we offer the Ho Ho to First Lady Novartov, as a point of protocol?”
Adam glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t you remember, while we were helping the VP’s personal assistant coordinate post-show party appearances, they were stuffing themselves with a gourmet dinner at Spago’s. I think they can wait a little longer ...and the VP’s wife doesn’t look like she’s in any danger of starving.”
Megan gaped at her fellow intern, then shook her head. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Eat,” Adam commanded. “I told you this job had perks.”
“Adam.”
Special Agent Auburn waved him over. It took only one glance to see why. The man was having trouble breathing. His features were twisted. He was obviously in pain.
“Sir, are you all right?” Adam whispered in alarm.
He leaned close. “I think it’s my heart.”
“Sir, what can I do for you?”
“Don’t tell the others.” He reached into his jacket,
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pulled something out and thrust it into Adam’s hands.
The intern looked down. He saw two pounds of black metal.
“I’m going to instruct you how to use it,” whispered the agent, “just in case anything happens to me. Okay? You with me?”
Adam nodded.
“This weapon is a forty-five caliber USP Tactical— a Universal Self-loading Pistol,” Craig Auburn whispered. “It’s hard-hitting, but it’s got a good recoil-reduction system, so when you fire, the kick will be dampened. Are you following me, son? Don’t be afraid.”
Actually Adam wasn’t afraid. After seeing who the terrorists had hurt and killed, knowing who they intended to hurt and kill ...mostly what Adam felt was anger.
“Yes, sir. Go on.”
11:23:46 P.M.PDT Terrence Alton Chamberlain Auditorium Los Angeles
“It’s been over three hours since Dennis and Nancy were taken away,” Chandra said, frowning. “Where did they take them? What did they do to them?”
Teri Bauer ignored the questions, checked on Carla. Her contractions seemed to have stopped. The woman’s eyes were open and she was pale, sweating.
“Carla?” Teri whispered. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” Carla replied. “When the contractions come, I think I’m going to die. Now that they’ve stopped, I’m terrified that something bad is happening to my baby.”
“Try not to worry,” Teri replied. “I was in labor with Kimberly for over twenty-two hours. My contractions stopped and started many times. My cousin’s stopped altogether and had to be induced.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know...I’m so scared.”
“You have to think positively, Carla. It’s the only way to get through something like this. For the sake of your baby, you have to keep your spirits up, believe things will turn out all right.”
Carla nodded, swallowed with difficulty, forced a smile.
“Hey, watch it there!” an angry voice suddenly cried.
Teri looked up to see two masked men approaching, machine guns slung over their shoulders. They were dragging the limp form of an older man between them. In the row in front of Teri, there was a line of empty seats, and the terrorists tossed the injured man into one of them.
“Nazi bastards,” the man muttered, spitting blood. Crimson rivulets poured down his face and onto his white shirt, open at the collar, the bow tie undone. One eye was swollen shut and there was a bloody gap in his jaw where a tooth used to be.
Another older man, still wearing his evening jacket, hurried up the aisle. He moved toward the injured man’s side, only to be yanked back and cuffed by one of the masked men. The man tore the Rolex off his own wrist and held it out to the masked men. Brushing the offering aside, the two walked away, laughing.
“Ben, Ben,” said the newcomer to the injured man. “Why did you have to shoot your mouth off?”
“Lousy Nazis. I should spit at them again.” Then Ben’s bloodied mouth grinned. “I sure pissed them off, didn’t I, Hal?”
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“And look what it got you, you putz!”
Teri leaned forward. “Here, clean him up with this,” she said, handing Hal a discarded satin wrap.
“Thank you,” he said and went to work on his bleeding friend.
“Please to meet you. I’m Hal Green, the director of this miserable turkey.” He pointed to his friend. “And this big mouth here is my AD, Ben Solomon. We were in the control booth when everything went down. Tomas Morales and his security people tried to stage an attack but the terrorists gunned them all down. Then, after these nuts took over, they forced me to set up a camera in the booth and teach one of them how to operate it. Then they dumped us down here.”
Hal Green scanned the auditorium. “How are things down here? We’ve been out of touch upstairs.”
“They’re giving us bathroom breaks now. Ten people at a time. Abigail Heyer and her entourage got first dibs—”
“No surprise there.” Chandra snorted. “Once Hollywood royalty, always Hollywood royalty.”
“Still no food or water for the rest of us,” Teri added. Then she glanced up at the glass booth high over their heads and leaned in close to Hal so Carla wouldn’t hear. “You said they wanted to use a camera up there?” she whispered.
“That’s right.”
“They must be preparing to issue demands then. And if their demands aren’t met, they’ll start killing hostages.”
Hal Green eyed Teri. “What are you, doll, an FBI agent? CIA?”
“Close,” she replied.
11:38:46 P.M.PDT LAPD Mobile Command Center
Jack Bauer, Chet Blackburn, and a group of hastily assembled consulting engineers had been reviewing the blueprints for the Chamberlain Auditorium for over an hour. As one of only two people who’d escaped the terrorists, Lonnie Nobunaga was among them. Jack thought that since the photographer had actually been inside the auditorium, he might offer some insight.
The group deduced that the terrorists were unaware of a new air conditioning and filtration system being retrofitted to the auditorium to meet new state government standards for indoor air quality. The ducts being assembled were large and extensive enough to move armed snipers through the building unseen. But they would have to get into the building’s basement to reach the duct ports.
They studied the city’s water and storm drain system, but ran into another dead end. Nothing larger than a twenty-inch pipe ran into or out of the auditorium—too narrow for a human to pass through. The only building close to the auditorium was the Summit Studios offices, which actually abutted the theater. But the offices shared the same fire door system as the auditorium itself and was just as impenetrable.
“The walls of that auditorium are three feet thick in places,” said Jon Francis, a portly engineer in a rumpled Hawaiian shirt with a bald head shaved clean as a billiard ball. By day a professor of engineering at a local college, Francis freelanced as a CTU advisor. “It would take a construction team an hour to break through—maybe more,” he warned.
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“And the terrorists would detonate their bombs as soon as they heard the first jackhammer,” Jack added.
Evans spoke up. “What makes you so sure they have bombs?”
“The Chechens were responsible for the siege at the Moscow Opera House,” Jack replied, “and you know how that went down. The terrorists seized the theater, used Chechen war widows with bombs under their clothing to cow the authorities into inaction. Eventually President Putin authorized the Russian police to use sedative gas to knock out everyone—that option isn’t available to us in this situation.”
“Why not?” asked Lonnie Nobunaga. “We have non-lethal gases in our arsenal, don’t we?”
“Unfortunately there’s no such thing as a nonlethal chemical attack, no matter what the experts say,” Jack replied. “Fentanyl or other calmative gases are deadly in large enough concentrations, and massive amounts would be needed to fill up the Chamberlain. That would mean death to a large number of people in the crowd. Children would be most susceptible, but everyone under a certain weight will overdose. Those who are allergic will have adverse, possibly fatal reactions. People with prior medical conditions could die from complications, and pregnant women will most surely miscarry. Over a hundred hostages lost their lives in the Moscow siege—most because of the gas, not the terrorists.”
Lonnie’s face fell. “I see your point.”
Evans frowned at the schematics on the monitor. “This place is impenetrable. With the fire doors closed, it’s like a fortress.”
A police technician approached the group. “Special Agent Bauer? Nina Myers is on the horn for you.”
Jack Bauer accepted the headset, slipped the earbud into place. “Nina. What have you learned about the terrorists?”
“The United Liberation Front for a Free Chechnya has been around for about eight years. The organization began small, but has tripled in size and power very quickly. It’s violent—sort of Chechen version of the Hezbollah. The group has become so influential that two years ago Nikolai Manos, the head of the Russia East Europe Trade Alliance, assisted the State Department in secret negotiates with its rebel leaders.”
“Nikolai Manos. Can we reach him?” Jack asked.
“I tried,” Nina replied. “Unfortunately Mr. Manos is unavailable. He was in the Los Angeles headquarters of his organization for a press event early this afternoon, but his aides tell me he’s left the city on a secret trade mission.”
“A bit too convenient. Find out all you can about Manos and his organization.”
“I’m already on it,” Nina replied.
Jack ended the call, looked at the monitor where Christina Hong continued her bogus broadcast in the likely event the terrorists were still tuning in.
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THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 A.M. AND 1 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
12:10:59 A.M.PDT CTU Mobile Command Center
Edgar Stiles needed no mirror to tell him he was a short, dumpy man. He was not handsome, nor was he a slave to fashion—his khaki pants seemed to wrinkle as soon as he put them on, and he wore shirts buttoned all the way up to his thick neck. But Edgar was not stupid. He grasped the tactical dilemma facing Jack Bauer almost immediately.
Sitting in the eight-wheeled CTU mobile command and control unit within sight of the Chamberlain Auditorium, Edgar could glance out the door and see the LAPD mobile command center parked just across the street. Only a few yards separated the two massive vehicles; for Edgar, however, they might as well have been parked on opposite sides of the planet.
Less than six weeks on the job at CTU, Stiles had not been happy to be torn from his familiar workstation and assigned to a glorified mobile home sitting only a few blocks from a terrorist crisis. When he’d arrived on the scene, Milo Pressman, his immediate supervisor for the evening, had assigned him the mind-numbing task of scanning and digitizing blueprints. The schematics came from all over—the Los Angeles Department of Water and Sewage, the Pacific Power and Light Company, LA Cablevision, and the California Department of Highways.
It didn’t take long for Edgar to deduce that Special Agent Bauer and Tactical Unit Chief Chet Blackburn were trying to find a way inside the Chamberlain Auditorium without alerting the hostage-takers to their presence.
Though Edgar’s first instinct was to devalue his own self-worth, he knew very well that in this situation he possessed information that might possibly help his superiors and save lives. Still, Edgar vacillated, wondering whom he should approach with the information. For fifteen minutes he mulled over this dilemma. Finally, he decided to speak with Milo—although he wasn’t particularly at ease with the idea. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Milo. Edgar just didn’t feel comfortable with him.
“E-excuse me,” Edgar said, so nervous he was already flustered. “I need to speak with someone—”
“If you need help, talk to Dan Hastings,” Milo said. “Dan knows this command center like the back of his hand. I’m kind of swamped right now.”
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“Oh, sure . . . S-sorry,” Edgar replied. “I won’t bother you again, sir.”
Deflated, Edgar returned to his workstation. He labored to deplete the pile on his desk, then he took a break, stepping outside for a breath of fresh air. Through an open hatch in the LAPD command center, Edgar could see Jack Bauer in quiet consultation with Blackburn and the others.
“You have to say something,” Edgar muttered to himself.
Twice he took halting steps toward the vehicle’s doorway, only to turn back, or pace nervously in the dark street. More minutes passed, and Edgar realized he’d better return to his workstation in case more files came in for him to scan. But as Edgar turned to go, he heard raised voices coming through the hatch.
“It’s like Masada!” exclaimed Chet Blackburn in a frustrated voice.
“No fortress is impenetrable. The Chamberlain Auditorium must have some weakness we can exploit. We just have to find it.”
The second speaker was Jack Bauer himself, and just hearing the man close up made Edgar want to bolt in the opposite direction.
This guy’s killed people. He’s been in every kind of dangerous situation imaginable. How can a slob like me help someone like him?
Yet the longer Edgar eavesdropped on the conversation, the more he became convinced that the information in his brain—trivia, really—could actually help. And if he could help, then didn’t he owe it to the innocent lives at stake to do all he could?
Summoning his courage, Edgar took a deep breath and walked into the operational command center. As he moved through the busy control hub, crowded with monitors, communications gear and high-tech workstations, Edgar fully expected to be challenged and summarily tossed out on his ear. Instead, no one paid attention to him. Obviously they were too wrapped up in their tasks to notice a newcomer.
Edgar approached Jack Bauer. The man’s face was lit by the digital image displayed on a horizontal screen of the map table. The harsh light made the man’s already pale face seem almost white as bone.
“Mr. Bauer, sir?” Edgar cringed inwardly when he heard his own voice, strained by nervousness and too loud. “Can I have a word with you?”
Jack, jolted out of his thoughts, faced Edgar. “Excuse me?”
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