24 Declassified: 10 - Head Shot

by David S. Jacobs

  She worked more keys and a mouse, and after a pause the subject’s image broke up only to be immediately reformatted. “This is how he’d look without the hair and beard.”

  Jack said, “Bingo! That’s him. That’s Reb.” She did some more manipulations. “Just to be sure, that’s how he’d look with a crew cut.”

  “That’s him all right.”

  The subject was identified as one “Weld, Gordon Stuart; aka Reb, The Rebel, Gordy, Gordo,” and a number of other aliases that were mostly variations and combinations of his first and middle names.

  Gordon Stuart Weld, thirty-seven, born in Atlanta, had an extensive criminal record throughout the South and Southwest. He had a high IQ, a hatred for authority, and a propensity for ultra-violence.

  His early years included several stays in a state reformatory and six months’ confinement in a mental hospital for stabbing a schoolmate with a penknife. His psychiatric record featured frequent use of the terms “sociopathic,”

  “narcissistic,” and “paranoid.” He became heavily involved in gang activity during middle school, a pattern that would continue into his adult life. He was an avid motorcycle enthusiast, a skilled rider, and an expert mechanic.

  He’d enthusiastically embraced the world and lifestyle of violent biker gangs, belonging to several such outfits in the South. His lengthy arrest record showed numerous counts of assault, illegal possession of firearms, drug dealing, and theft. He was arrested for rape several times but released when complainants refused to press charges due to intimidation by his fellow gang members.

  His size, strength, and ruthlessness won him a spot as gang enforcer, dealing out beatings and brutality on a businesslike basis. He freelanced as a collector for loan sharks and a hired gun for drug dealers. He served three and a half years in a state penitentiary for manslaughter and five years in Federal prison for gunrunning. His arrest record fell off after that, largely because the witnesses to subsequent crimes were found slain or simply disappeared.

  He became a member of the Hellbenders Motorcycle Club, an outlaw biker gang with chapters throughout Texas and the Southwest. He rose fast through the ranks and was a major player in the gang’s rackets that included methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution, forced prostitution of topless and strip club dancers, gunrunning, extortion, and murder. He was rumored to be part of the gang’s elite squad of executioners.

  Weld had had a falling-out with his associates in the past year following an arrest in Texas for illegal gun dealing. The mug shots in his computer file had been taken during his booking on those charges. He turned informant to avoid a lengthy prison sentence for this second Federal term. He set up his fellow biker gang partners for a bust, at the same time absconding with the loot from the racket and dropping off law enforcement agencies’ radar. He was now a wanted fugitive sought by police and the Hellbenders M.C., the latter having posted an open murder contract on his head with a fifty-thousand- dollar bounty collectable by anyone who could produce same. Literally.

  Jack Bauer said, “Two Hellbenders were at the gorge today where the AFT agents were found. They must be looking for Reb. His being on the run explains the platinum hair dye job, too. It’s such an obvious giveaway that it could only have been done to draw attention away from his previous appearance.”

  Lila Gibbs said, “He should have changed his name along with his hair color.” Jack grinned. “He never planned on any outsiders hearing it and living. I got a lucky break.”

  “Sometimes that’s all it takes to crack a case wide open.”

  “Let’s hope this is one of those times.”

  Now the CTU machinery would go to work on Reb Weld, vacuuming up every speck of data relating to his life and habits, criminal career, known associates, friends, and enemies, anything that might be of use in tracking him down. The manhunt would begin in earnest, putting the Big Heat on Weld. Jack described Rowdy and Griff, and Lila Gibbs added the data to the search.

  Somewhere in that mass of facts was the answer to the big question: what was the link between outlaw biker thug and killer Reb Weld, a stolen case of BZ gas grenades, a crank-kook cult of Zealots, and a multimillionaires’ conclave at Sky Mount?

  A discreet rapping on a cubicle partition wall caused Jack and Gibbs to look up from the monitor screen. The knocking had been done by a soft- faced man in his mid-twenties, a staffer at the Pike’s Ford CP.

  Gibbs said, “Yes, Charlie?”

  Charlie said, “Excuse me, Lila. Jack Bauer?”

  Jack said, “Yes?”

  “There’s a phone call for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jack rose from his chair. “Thanks, Lila. Thanks a lot.”

  She said, “My pleasure. I’ll start our mill wheels grinding on the Rebel and friends.”

  “Grind them fine.”

  Charlie said, “This way please, sir.” Jack followed the youth along the central corridor to a cubicle at the far end of the trailer. Charlie indicated a satellite phone on the counter. “It’s a secured phone, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Jack picked up the receiver and Charlie made himself absent.

  “Bauer speaking.” A voice at the other end of the connection squawked, “What the hell are you trying to pull, Jack?”

  There was no mistaking the strident tones of Regional Division Director Ryan Chappelle in high bad humor.

  Jack sighed. “Hello, Ryan.”

  “Are you insubordinate or just plain neglectful?” Chappelle’s voice tended to get screechy when he was angry, and it was screechy now. “You were told to report to me regularly on the Sky Mount situation. That was an order, not a request. I haven’t received a single report from you since you got there, not one. I’ve been calling you every hour and all I keep getting is your voice mail. My messages to you to contact me have been piling up with no reply. I’ve had to get all my information on the scene from Garcia’s people and I can only imagine what they’re leaving out. Even with the minimal amount I’m getting it looks like things have gone to hell in a handbasket. What’s going on out there?”

  Jack knew from long experience that when Chappelle was in one of these moods there was nothing to do but wait until he paused for lack of breath. “Ryan, in the last fourteen hours I’ve been shot at, pistol-whipped, dynamited, ambushed, gas-bombed, and attacked by a bear. I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive to report back to you and for that I apologize.”

  There was another pause while Chappelle digested the import of Jack’s words. His voice was lower and more modulated when he spoke again. “Then there is an ongoing conspiracy against the Round Table.”

  “That’s correct, Ryan.”

  “Thank God for that!”

  Jack couldn’t help but grin wryly to himself at the heartfelt relief in Chappelle’s statement. Everything was okay. Ryan Chappelle was on the record as having been proven right in his conjectures about an anti–Sky Mount plot. That would look good with the top brass at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

  Jack gave Chappelle a brisk summary of the salient facts: the mass murder of the Zealot cadre, the BZ gas grenade connection, and Reb Weld’s kill squad. Chappelle, once again the resolute in-charge authority that he saw himself as, said, “You can figure all that out later. Right now I’ve got something important for you to do. Top priority, immediate action.”

  “What’s that, Ryan?”

  “Apprehend Brad Oliver.”

  “Brad Oliver?”

  “Confidential secretary to the great Cabot Huntington Wright himself.”

  “I know who he is, I’ve met him.”

  “Arrest him. My fiscal analysis team finally broke through the web of shell companies and dummy corporations to finger the mystery man who’s been short selling stocks to bet on catastrophe. It’s Oliver.”

  Jack knew better than to ask Chappelle if he was sure of the information. Chappelle would never have put it out there if he were unsure.

  Chappell
e’s tone was confidential, intense. “This is hot stuff, Jack. I only found out about it minutes ago myself. I wanted you to have it first so we can steal a march on Garcia.”

  “I’m working with the man, Ryan. He’s going to have to know about it.”

  “Of course. My people are contacting him now with the intelligence. But this way you’ll be right in on the kill so he can’t freeze you out and grab all the credit for himself.”

  “You think of everything, Ryan.”

  “I try. One more thing, Jack, and this is strictly for your ears only: Oliver’s just the tip of the iceberg. Behind him is something a hundred times bigger. The find was serendipitous—my analysts came across it while cracking Oliver’s manipulations. His short selling is the opening wedge of a far greater financial conspiracy being conducted in the world markets. It’s the same pattern of betting on disaster only a quantum level higher. There could be as much as a hundred million dollars’ worth of shorted stocks gambling on an imminent economic meltdown.”

  Jack’s eyebrows lifted. A hundred million dollars! He said, “That kind of money requires a major player. A hostile nation, maybe.”

  Chappelle said, “We’re working on it. It’s top secret until we’ve got it nailed down for sure. For now, though, grab Oliver. Sweat him. Make him talk. I’m counting on you, Jack. You know how these things are done.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 6 P.M. AND 7 P.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME

  Sky Mount, Colorado

  Long shadows fell on Masterman Way as Jack Bauer and Ernie Sandoval drove up to the gates of Sky Mount estate. The midsummer sun was still high in the sky but the mountains were tall, bathing the grounds in blue shadow. Lights winked on in the mansion and its surroundings.

  The two agents were in the Mercedes. Sandoval was behind the wheel and Jack sat on the front passenger side. Jack had felt a sharp pang of regret and sorrow earlier when he first realized that they were going to be traveling in the Merc; the last time he’d been in it, Anne Armstrong had been his partner.

  The car was trailed by a dark green SUV carrying a well-armed backup unit of four CTU action men.

  No unpleasantness was expected on this visit but it was good to expect the unexpected.

  Anything involving the Round Table conclave had to be handled with kid gloves. Its host and attendees comprised a significant slice of America’s moneyed and powerful elite; their feathers were not to be ruffled without good cause.

  This explained the security arrangements at Sky Mount. Its rich and powerful guests had reasons of their own for maximizing their personal and professional privacy. They didn’t want the place swarming with FBI agents and intelligence operatives who might conceivably ferret out secrets about their businesses and private lives. Knowledge is power; no one knows that better than those at the top.

  That was why security at the estate itself was being handled by the Brand Agency, a private firm known for secrecy and discretion where the ultra-rich are involved. The fact that a controlling interest in the firm was held by the Masterman Trust was a further guarantor that what happened at Sky Mount would stay at Sky Mount.

  Similar thinking lay behind the national intelligence establishment’s decision to keep the events and revelations of Silvertop hidden behind a wall of secrecy, a directive handed down from the highest levels in Washington, D.C. It was believed that disclosure of the truth about the Zealots’ mass grave and the killer strike force would trigger a panicky mass evacuation of Sky Mount.

  No real, tangible evidence that those dealings involved a plot against the Round Table had as yet been unearthed. There was nothing to be taken in hand to Cabot Huntington Wright and associates to prove to them that the gathering must be gaveled to a premature and disastrous close.

  Ruining the conference without good cause would create an avalanche of bad publicity and ill-will that would bury any officials rash enough to take it on themselves to cause it to be canceled simply to be on the safe side.

  People resent having their lives disrupted by a false alarm. The master and guests of Sky Mount had ways of making their displeasure felt by those who’d sounded the alert because of a fire somewhere way off in the distance when the conferees hadn’t even smelled the smoke.

  It was the old one about the boy who cried wolf. The wolf had better be at the door, or let the crier beware.

  The BZ connection was an additional complicating factor, one that would never surface if the Army had its way, and there was no reason to expect that it wouldn’t.

  That was a national security nightmare and potential public relations debacle that was best kept hidden from the power brokers at Sky Mount, to say nothing of the average citizens and taxpayers who’re generally kept in the dark as a matter of policy.

  What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt all parties concerned—unless the worst happened and disaster struck. So it had better not happen.

  Anything else was unthinkable.

  Brad Oliver’s arrest would be handled with a maximum of discretion. Jack Bauer and Ernie Sandoval would make the pinch, quietly whisking Oliver out a side door and off the premises without the guests suspecting that anything was amiss.

  The CTU agents were casually but correctly attired to blend in with the surroundings. They were armed only with their guns and wore no protective bulletproof garments. Each man was equipped with a pair of nose filters and a half-dozen slapshot ampoules containing an antidote to BZ, gear that fit comfortably in their jacket pockets and had been supplied to them earlier at Pike’s Ford by Dr. Norbert.

  This precaution had been taken not because of any danger that might threaten at Sky Mount but in anticipation that an attempt might be made against them in transit while they were taking Oliver to the command post.

  That was also the reason for the presence of the backup unit. They would wait outside the gates while Jack and Sandoval apprehended Oliver.

  No advance notice had been given to the conference’s hosts or guardians to avoid Oliver’s learning by accident or design of his imminent arrest.

  Jack and Sandoval had to endure the tedious admittance process necessary for the uninvited to gain entry to the estate.

  They could have pulled a power play by using their Federal authority to bull their way in but chose not to do so for fear of prematurely alerting Oliver or any accomplices he might have inside the estate.

  Oliver’s status as a wanted man was a tightly held secret known only to Chappelle, Garcia, and the two agents in the Mercedes. The backup crew knew that an arrest would be made but were unaware of the suspect’s identity.

  Fifteen minutes passed before someone came down from the mansion to escort the agents beyond the gate. They were met this time by Don Bass, head of the Brand Agency’s presence on the estate.

  The first of the conference’s day-long sessions had apparently not been without its rigors for the security chief, who looked considerably more rumpled and frazzled than he had early that morning. His forehead was corrugated by worry lines, his eyes were tired, and his jowly face exhibited a glum, hangdog expression.

  He summoned up a cheerful grin as he climbed into the back of the car. “Hi fellows, what’s up?”

  Sandoval said, “A routine visit. How goes the gathering of the high-and-mighty?”

  “Hectic!” Bass settled back into the seat cushions as the Mercedes rolled through the open gate and up the long curved driveway toward the mansion.

  Jack turned in his seat so he could look Bass in the face. He said, “Actually, we’re here to make an arrest.”

  Sandoval added dryly, “A routine arrest.”

  Bass reacted like he’d been zapped by an electric cattle prod. He bounced upright in his seat so abruptly that the top of his head barely missed hitting the roof. “What? You’re kidding!”

  Jack said, “No.”

  Bass sat leaning forward, his thickset upper body rigidly tilted at an acute angle. “There’s no such thing as a
routine arrest here.”

  Sandoval said, “We’ll try and keep it that way any how.”

  Bass said eagerly, “Who’s the pigeon? Anybody I know?”

  Jack said, “Brad Oliver.”

  Bass’s broad face creased in lines of wonderment and disbelief. “Masterman’s stooge? What’s he done?”

  “We just want to have a little chat with him.”

  Bass’s expression took on a wise and knowing look. “Can’t tell, huh? More cloak and dagger stuff. Must be something big if you boys are putting the arm on him.”

  Sandoval said, “Naturally we’ll be relying on your discretion, Don.”

  “You’ll have my full cooperation, of course, and the entire firm’s as well.” Jack said, “We’d prefer that this be kept between the three of us. Private and confidential.”

  Sandoval said, “We don’t want to rile up any of the guests. Might cause them to choke on their caviar and truffles.”

  Bass said, “I understand completely. You call the signals and I’ll play them.”

  “Thanks, Don, I knew we could count on you.”

  “You bet!” Bass was happy and excited, like a young baseball fan with a ticket to a big league game. “Boy oh boy! This is really something. I never had much use for the pussyfooting little creep, but who’d have thought that Oliver had it in him to run afoul of Uncle Sammy? This’ll really knock old Huntington Wright back on his heels.”

  The car pulled over to the side of the main drive and rolled to a halt a few lengths short of the front entrance. Sandoval said, “The three of us will handle it, Don. Please don’t mention this to your associates.”

  “I’ve been to the fair before.” Sandoval switched off the car and the trio got out. A uniformed Brand guard came hurrying over to wave them away. “Hey! You can’t park here—oh, sorry Mr. Bass, I didn’t know it was you.”

  Bass said, “That’s okay, they’re with me. See that nothing happens to this car.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Jack, Sandoval, and Bass made for the front entrance, an elaborately pillared portico. Bass said in an aside, “Once you’ve got your man we’ll have the car brought around to the side and you can take him out that way. Makes less fuss all around.”