“Prewitt and his top lieutenant, Ingrid Thaler, were killed, too, but their bodies weren’t dumped with the others. They were taken to the base camp at Winnetou and kept on ice for future use. I came across the ice chest that had been used to keep the corpses in cold storage at the camp but didn’t know what it was for until later tonight. It wasn’t until I found Prewitt and Thaler’s bodies in Level Two that the significance of the ice chest became clear to me. The cadavers had been frozen to disguise the true time of their death. They were going to be planted outside the mansion to be found in the aftermath of the destruction. By then the heat of the firestorm would have warmed them up.
“Prewitt and Thaler being found dead at the scene of the crime would have clinched the case for the Zealots’ responsibility for the terror strike. It would have been open and shut as far as the authorities and the public were concerned and no one need look any further into the matter. A crazy cult would have been blamed for the head shot that took down the national economy.
“Only it didn’t work out that way. The strike was thwarted and now we know the real mastermind behind the plot was you, Cabot Huntington Wright!”
Wright was squirming. He’d been unable to sit still as Jack Bauer drove home his summation. He now made a visible effort to regain his self- possession.
Wright tried another tack. “Theories are all very well, Agent Bauer — in theory. But proving them in open court is another matter. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that your allegations against me are true? How do you propose to prove them?
“Brad Oliver is dead. Larry Noone is dead. Going by your theory that I used them as middlemen and cat’s-paws to, how did you say it, get my dirty work done, how can you prove it? They can’t testify, and by your own logic they’re the only ones who could have tied me to these sordid murders and theft of Army secret weapons and legions of hired killers and whatnot. Proof. That’s what you’ve got to have and that’s what you lack.”
Jack pounced on something Wright had let slip.
“I never said anything about Army secret weapons and neither did anyone else. That statement was volunteered by you and I call on everybody else in this room to witness that you said it.”
Wright stifled a yawn. “Did I say it? I suppose I did. A man in my position, who meets so many four-star generals, politicians, financiers, defense contractors — yes, and intelligence professionals, Agent Bauer — is liable to hear all sorts of things.”
He leaned forward, poking his finger in the air to make his point. “You might say that it was, er, just something in the air. Something in the air that made me chatter idly of Army secret weapons. I might even have heard a rumor about a cache of experimental drug gas that was inexplicably lost, stolen, or strayed somehow. These things get around. Perhaps I discussed the subject during an idle moment with Larry Noone.
“What of it? You can make nothing of that, not in any court in the land. I’m no illegal alien whose head you can throw a black hood over and transport to Guantanamo Bay to torture into signing a confession. I’m an American citizen — an extremely wealthy one, need I add? You’ll find it very difficult to tie a tin can to this old dog’s tail, Agent Bauer.”
Jack said grimly, “You underestimate the effectiveness of the American government, Mr. Wright. An army of civil servants thinking about you every waking hour of the day and minutely examining the fine details of your public and private lives can unearth a hell of a lot of data about secrets, lies — and truth.”
Wright laughed. “And you underestimate the power of my attorneys, Agent Bauer. My army of high-powered, high- priced attorneys and their inexhaustible battery of legal tactics and tricks.”
He rose. “No, you’ve got nothing on me — nothing you can prove. Go ahead with this farce of an arrest if you like. My lawyers will have me free and on the street before dawn. Not the street, actually, that’s just a manner of speaking. Shall we say, out of jail and in the penthouse?”
The unexpected happened, the unpredictable variable that no one can factor into his calculations. Jack Bauer never saw it coming and he wondered later, even if he had, would he have tried to stop it? He thought not.
But he didn’t see it coming and neither did anybody else in the room, least of all Cabot Huntington Wright.
Marion Clary without warning seized up a letter opener from the top of Cabot Wright’s desk and with a shrill, wordless screech buried it deep in his chest.
She cried, “It’s true! True! True!” She stabbed Wright once with each cry, driving the daggerlike letter opener into his chest and neck.
Ernie Sandoval and Don Bass rushed forward to grab her and wrestle the weapon away from her even as Wright folded at the knees, sagging to the floor and sprawling across it, spilling his lifeblood into the deep pile carpet that greedily absorbed it just as it had tenderly cushioned his fall.
Red blood — not blue.
The best physicians were called, of course, but it was too late. One of the thrusts had pierced his heart, and he died within minutes of the assault.
Marion Clary, dazed by her own violence, kept repeating, “I had to do it, he had to be stopped… I had to do it. No one else could stop him, the monster… I had to do it. He had to be stopped.”
She was still repeating it when a pair of white-coated orderlies came to take her away. They were very gentle with her. She would need gentleness.
Don Bass said, “I promise on my honor I will move heaven and earth to see that she never spends a day of her life in jail.”
Jack Bauer said, “She won’t — I promise you that.” Ernie Sandoval said, “If we had any guts we’d pin a medal on her.”
Jack shook his head in wonderment. “The ways of fate are strange. Did you see what she stabbed him with?”
Don Bass said, “The letter opener?” Jack said, “The antique letter opener that once belonged to Marshal Fouché, Napoleon’s spy chief.”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “The old king of spymasters reached out from beyond the grave on one final mission of righteous retribution!”
Sandoval said, “Amen to that, brother.”
Don Bass shook his head. “You fellows are kidding yourselves. It’s just coincidence, that’s all. Sheer blind luck. She wanted to strike out and picked up the first thing that came to hand.”
Jack Bauer laughed, a little self-consciously. “I know what I think. You can think what you want, Don. You can do that. It’s still a free country.
“At least for today it is,” he added. “That’ll hold us till tomorrow.”
About the Author
DAVID JACOBS is the author of over three dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including most recently, the nonfiction titles The Mafia’s Greatest Hits and Snakes on a Plane: The Complete Quote Book. Other nonfiction titles include Notes from The Barn, the companion volume to The Shield TV series; Best of Court TV Volumes I–IV; and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the FBI. His fiction includes the military thriller Return of the Dog Team and the western Big Iron. David is a longtime member of the Mystery Writers of America.
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24 Declassified: Head Shot 2d-10 Page 31