24 Declassified: Collateral Damage 2d-8

by Marc A. Cerasini

  The priest was quiet for a long minute, just staring at Tony. Finally, he said, “I don’t believe your story.”

  The priest said he’d heard enough confessions to hear in man’s voice when he was lying. But he said that he felt in Tony’s spirit and saw in his eyes that he was not an evil man.

  Tony assured the priest that what he was doing was for the good of many — and he wouldn’t reveal where he’d learned the information. The priest gave him the address, and they’d bid each other good night.

  “Sounds like you’re pretty familiar with life on the streets,” Foy observed.

  “Yeah, well… talking the talk helps.”

  Tony had steered clear of gangs and drugs while grow-ing up on Chicago’s South Side, mostly because his eyes were always fixed on a career in the Marine Corps. But he’d still lived on the streets — and if you wanted to keep on living, you knew whom to trust, whom to avoid, and whom to go to for information without fear of reprisals.

  “So what did the man tell you?” Judith asked.

  “That the Thirteen Gang has a crib on Crampton Street, three blocks away. An old brick house with a steel door painted red, all the windows boarded up so it looks abandoned.”

  Foy nodded. “I remember that location. We passed it half an hour ago. Come on, I know the way…”

  11:49:56 P.M. EDT

  The Beresfield Apartments

  Central Park West

  New York, New York

  Jack Bauer stood on the corner of West Sixty-fourth and Central Park West, staring at the eighth floor of the Beresfield Apartments. The landmark building sat across the street from Central Park, and beside the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

  The ornate, terra-cotta trimmed structure had been constructed in the 1930s, according to the bronze plaque set above the cornerstone. The plaque also stated that the Beresfield was the home of the wealthy and influential, but Jack Bauer was interested in only one of the building’s occupants: Erno Tobias, an executive for Rogan Pharmaceuticals.

  Jack needed to surprise Tobias if the man was home, or thoroughly search the Albino’s apartment if he wasn’t. But getting inside wasn’t going to be easy. It was close to mid-night, but many of the apartments were still brightly lit.

  The Beresfield boasted both a doorman and a desk clerk.

  Going through the front door was not an option.

  Fortunately, the Beresfield was an old building, with an outmoded security system that relied too heavily on the men at the front door, and not enough on modern technology. Jack saw no cameras or motion detectors outside the lobby door, or at the service entrance on Sixty-sixth Street.

  Jack had already decided to enter through the service entrance. It was tucked behind an eight-foot cast-iron fence, in a shadowy alley between the Beresfield and the building behind it. All he had to do was climb the fence, pick the lock, and he would be inside. But he was forced to wait a few minutes while a chain-smoking, anorexic-thin woman finished walking her poodle. She did at last, flout-ing the pooper-scooper law by leaving the dog’s dump at the base of a fire hydrant. As soon as the woman’s stick legs disappeared around the corner, Jack moved.

  With stealthy smoothness, he climbed the fence and dropped into the dimly lit alley. Hidden in the shadows, Jack used his Tac Five, CTU’s version of a Swiss Army knife, to begin probing the lock. Before he even touched it, the steel door opened.

  “Madre de Dios! ”

  The pudgy woman took a step backward when she saw the stranger looming in the doorway. Jack raised his hands to calm her.

  “Estoy apesadumbrado que le asusté, ” Jack said, apologizing for frightening her. “Trabajo aquí, también.”

  The woman smiled, and Jack knew she’d accepted his lie, believed he was an employee for one of the wealthy residents, too.

  “Buenas noches,” she said, pushing past him.

  “Buenas noches a usted, señora,” Jack replied.

  MetroCard in hand, the woman hurried through the cast-iron gate, heading toward the subway entrance on Broadway. Jack stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

  He walked down a long corridor with peeling green paint on the walls, fluorescent lights buzzing above. A freight elevator stood at the end. Beside it was a door to the stairs. He took the steps, avoiding the chance of a security camera inside the elevator.

  The staircase felt wider than his living room back in Los Angeles, with marble steps and brass railings that shone dully. Jack’s footsteps echoed as he climbed. At the eighth floor, he opened the door a crack and checked the hallway.

  Empty.

  Jack left the stairwell and searched for apartment 801.

  There were only four apartments on this floor, and he found Tobias’s quickly, placed his ear against the darkly polished mahogany. The television was on, a car commercial, then the channel changed — someone was inside.

  Jack considered knocking but rejected the idea. Instead, he drew out his Tac tool and went to work on the lock.

  Eleven seconds later, the tumblers fell into place and the lock clicked. Jack pushed through and closed the door behind him. He stood in a large, well-appointed foyer. The lighting was muted, the walls paneled with dark wood. An antique table held an abstract sculpture. Jack pressed his spine to the wall, drew the Glock from its holster. Clutching the weapon with both hands, he moved to the next wall and peered down a long hallway lined with framed oil paintings.

  He was about to move when his eyes were drawn to an object that had been carelessly tossed on an elaborately carved end table — his own Glock, taken by the Albino that morning, at the restaurant. Jack shifted the weapon he’d borrowed from Morris to his right hand, slipped his own gun into the empty holster with his left.

  Jack moved cautiously down the hall. The television continued to blare from the living room — now it was turned to the Serbian News Network. Hearing the familiar language made Jack pause. He waited for the channel to change again, but minutes passed and the somber Serb anchor continued to drone her monologue.

  The Albino speaks Serbian…

  The realization made Jack consider something almost impossible. Memories came over him. He flashed back to the war in Bosnia. His Delta Force missions. Operation Nightfall.

  Jack remembered the stories of Odreðeni cˇlan bled ubica—the Pale One.

  Could it be…

  Jack peered around the corner, into the living room. The furnishings in here were sparse — Danish modern — sitting on a parquet floor. A sliding glass door looked out on a balcony and the park beyond. At only the eighth floor, Tobias’s view of Central Park was basically a sea of treetops.

  Across the park, the windows of Manhattan’s East Side skyscrapers glowed like stars above a dark, leafy sea.

  On a table, a desktop computer displayed financial news. A large-screen TV mounted on the wall was still tuned to Serbian television, and Jack spied the satellite dish attached to the balcony’s railing.

  Finally, he saw the Albino. The man was lounging in a chair of cream-colored leather, legs crossed, clad in a silk robe. His white hair was damp from a shower, and he appeared to be dozing off — then Jack saw the hypodermic needle clutched in his pale hand.

  Jack slipped past the man, searched the kitchen and dining room, and found no one else. Glock raised, Jack returned to the living room and boldly entered.

  “Led pa Sneg! ” Jack shouted, addressing the Albino as “Ice and Snow,” the name the Pale One’s victims had given him.

  The Albino’s colorless eyes opened wide, not with confusion but recognition. He moved to rise, and the robe’s lapels parted, revealing a small black tattoo of a snarling dog on his milky chest. That’s when Jack knew for certain: Erno Tobias, the Albino, was the Pale One.

  As the brutal war criminal got to his feet to move forward, Jack took aim above the kneecap, avoiding the artery, and fired.

  Howling, Erno Tobias dropped back into the chair. He clutched his leg to stanch the bleeding. Still shocked by
the attack, the Albino looked up, and their eyes met.

  “Remember me?” Jack asked.

  11:53:46 P.M. EDT

  Security Station One

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  Morris O’Brian watched the screens, where real-time images out of Atlantic City displayed the firefight at the Ali Baba Casino from several different angles.

  He tapped his keyboard, moved the mouse, and the speakers came to life, broadcasting chaotic radio transmissions from varied sources.

  “… Shooter on roof. Return fire…”

  “… We have multiple victims inside the casino. Need medical teams…”

  “… He’s taken a hostage. Bring in the sniper…”

  “Officer down! Officer down!”

  Peter Randall stood at Morris’s shoulder, watching the screens in rapt attention. The phone rang and Morris grabbed it.

  “O’Brian.”

  “It’s Jack. I’m inside Erno Tobias’s penthouse.”

  “Was the little bugger at home?”

  “Affirmative,” Jack replied. “I’m about to have a talk with him. But first I want to send you the contents of the Albino’s computer.”

  Morris frowned. “Another data dump?”

  “A large one.”

  Morris fed Jack the access codes for a large cache in the CTU database. “Everything you send, I’ll copy and forward on to the analysts at Langley.”

  “Have the police found any more trucks?” Jack asked.

  “There’s mixed news on that front. Rutland, Vermont’s been hit. A truck bomb went off at a factory. We don’t know how bad it is yet, but authorities anticipate many casualties…”

  Morris heard Jack exhale.

  “But there’s good news, too,” he added quickly. “The New Jersey State Police and the local SWAT team stopped a truck outside a large casino in Atlantic City. The bomb’s been neutralized, but several armed terrorists escaped into the casino. The firefight’s still under way.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was heavy.

  “Have you learned anything from Mr. Tobias?” Morris asked.

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” Jack said, and the line went dead.

  18. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12:00 A.M. AND 1:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  12:00:20 A.M. EDT

  Near 1313 Crampton Street

  Newark, New Jersey

  “For a gang-banger’s crib, this place seems pretty dead,”

  Tony said.

  He and Judith Foy were on the stoop of an abandoned building on the opposite side of the street. Their surveillance had revealed a complete lack of activity at the Thirteen Gang’s headquarters.

  “Usually these places have a lively nightlife,” said Tony.

  “Punks coming and going. Women. Parties. The occasional gunplay. This crib’s way too quiet.”

  Tony shook his head. He’d even paced the block twice, looking for any signs of life. But all the doors and windows along this blighted block were boarded up and covered with graffiti — including the massive garage door on the empty warehouse at the end of the block. There was not even a crack dealer in sight, and no car had driven down this street in almost thirty minutes.

  “You’re sure this is the right place?” Foy asked.

  Tony shrugged. “Priests tend not to lie. And the one I talked to wasn’t afraid of me. He could have just sent me away with no information.”

  “Still, he could have — wait a minute.” Foy gripped Tony’s arm and pulled him back, into the shadows.

  “That Hummer at the end of the block,” she whispered.

  “I think I recognize it. From Kurmastan.”

  Tony saw it, too. The black vehicle had swung onto Crampton Street two blocks away. Now it moved slowly toward the row house with the red door. Judith Foy gripped the digital surveillance camera, hoping to snap pictures of the Hummer’s passengers.

  What happened next surprised them both. Instead of continuing down the block, the Hummer cut a sharp left at Peralta Storage, the supposedly abandoned warehouse on the corner. The garage door that seemed to be boarded up tight began to rise. Bright fluorescent light streamed out of the interior of the warehouse. Tony spotted equipment, holding tanks, men in white lab coats.

  Though the angle wasn’t good, and they couldn’t see very deep into the garage, Foy managed to snap a few pictures. Meanwhile the Hummer rolled into the hidden space and the door closed behind it, plunging the block into darkness once more.

  Crouched in the shadows, Tony and Judith exchanged puzzled glances.

  “What’s with the lab equipment?” Foy whispered. “Do you think the gang’s manufacturing crystal meth?”

  Tony shook his head. “I’ve seen meth labs before and they’re not that complex. There’s a state-of-the-art research lab inside that supposedly deserted building.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “What the hell are they doing?”

  12:13:12 A.M. EDT

  Eighth Floor, Beresfield Apartments Central Park West

  New York, New York

  Jack Bauer tightened the tourniquet with a yank. The Albino grunted, chewed his lower lip. The crimson flow from the ghastly wound in his leg slowed, but didn’t stop.

  Jack knew Erno Tobias could easily bleed to death if he wasn’t careful.

  Too bad.

  “The generals thought you were an urban myth,” Jack said, tugging on the electric cord wrapped around the man’s arms. “But the Bosnian refugees I spoke with all swore you existed. They’re the ones who named you Ice and Snow.”

  Bauer had addressed his captive in Serbian. Hearing his native language spoken by an American enemy seemed to throw the former assassin off balance, which was exactly what Jack wanted. Bauer also hoped the Albino might slip and say something he might not in his adopted tongue. So far, that hadn’t happened.

  Time to step up the pressure.

  Jack faced the man. “After Victor Drazen was killed—”

  The Albino spat on the hardwood floor at Jack’s feet.

  “Murdered, you mean—”

  “Neutralized,” Jack cut in. “The NATO forces seized his records, and there you were. No name, just a description.

  Odreðeni cˇlan—the Albino. Another document called you Odreðeni cˇlan bled ubica. The Pale One…”

  Jack saw the hunted look in the man’s pink-rimmed, colorless eyes and knew he was wearing the Albino down.

  “You were a member of Drazen’s Black Dogs,” Jack continued, gesturing to the man’s tattoo. “We wondered why every moderate politician who worked for peace ended up dead. Then we discovered it was you who assassinated them.”

  “They were traitors! Corrupt internationalists who allowed violent invaders to flourish inside our borders. You can pretend the refugees were innocent, that they didn’t invade our towns, murder Serbs, burn our churches. You can pretend, but I know the truth—”

  “And now you’re helping those same ‘violent foreigners’

  sow destruction in America.”

  The Albino smiled though his pain. “I would call that irony.”

  Jack slapped him hard, then knelt down and spoke softly into his ear. “That’s ancient history. Let’s talk about your current operation. Why are you helping Noor?”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The Albino snorted, licked blood off his lip. “Now you have them in your backyard. Let’s see how you like it—”

  Jack fought the urge to strike him again. Instead, he grinned coldly. “You blew it, Tobias — or whatever the hell your name really is. Even at the restaurant in Little Italy, I had no idea who you were, where you were from. But when I ran into that Serbian hit team at the World Trade Center, I started to get the picture. The people at Kurmastan are just pawns. Someone else is pulling the strings.”

  Jack grabbed a handful of the man’s white hair and yanked his head back. “Who are you working for?” Jack yelled. “Who’s pulling the strings and why?”

&n
bsp; Jack released the man and the Albino hung his head.

  “I hurt,” he said softly.

  Jack’s fists clenched. He thought of the Black Dogs, all the murders, rapes, and carnage they’d committed in Serbia. He thought of Kurmastan and those trucks of death, rolling down America’s highways now.

  “If you don’t tell me what I need to know,” Jack promised, “the pain is going to get a whole lot worse.”

  12:23:47 A.M. EDT

  Security Station One

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  The phone rang. Morris O’Brian’s eyes never left the monitor as he snatched the phone off its cradle.

  “O’Brian.”

  “It’s Tony.”

  “Ah, the prodigal son.”

  “Listen, Morris, we found the Thirteen Gang’s headquarters. It’s located at 1313 Crampton Street, Newark—”

  “1313?” Morris interrupted.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Listen, we found something else, too.”

  Morris winced. On the monitor, three Atlantic City police officers had just cut down a terrorist who’d ignored repeated commands to drop his weapon.

  “What… what did you find?” Morris asked, turning away from the bloody sight on the screen.

  “We don’t exactly know,” Tony replied. “There’s some kind of laboratory or drug factory or something inside the Crampton Street warehouse, which is supposed to be abandoned. A garage door opened up and Judith Foy shot a couple of surveillance photos. But we have no way to analyze the images on this end.”

  “Can you send them along? Or is Deputy Director Foy still worried about leaks?”

  Tony sighed. “I’ve convinced her the leaks have been plugged, but we don’t have a PDA. I can send the images to you through my cell phone, but they’re bound to lose some resolution.”

  “I know. Wish our technology was better. Maybe in a few years—”

  “Morris! We don’t have a few years.”

  “We can enhance the digital images on this end, Tony, make your pictures as good as new. Just send them along.”

  O’Brian gave Tony a phone number to use for the data dump. After he hung up, Morris faced Peter Randall.