by John Whitman
“Does Walsh know?” Kelly asked, referring to their direct boss, Richard Walsh, head of operations at CTU Los Angeles. Jack was cut from the same cloth as Walsh, who gave him a little more leeway than most. If Walsh was on his side, then Jack stood a chance of getting through his current insubordination with some of his hide intact.
“Only if you told him,” Jack replied.
“Jesus,” Kelly groaned. “Chappelle’s going to bust you down farther than he did last time.” Chappelle was the capo de tutti capo, District Director, which put him even over Walsh’s head. “All you needed to do was keep a low profile for a few more months. They’d send me out of here and you’d have your job back. Let everybody forget your screw-up on the Rafizadeh case.”
He heard an edge creep into Jack Bauer’s voice. “I’m not taking a six-month vacation. You put me on the militias and I look into the militias.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t supposed to find anything—”
“Well, I did. The Greater Nation militia was planning to drive a truck loaded with a cyanide bomb into Washington D.C. I’ve got testimony from a militia soldier, I’ve got the militia leader’s orders on the raid to get sodium cyanide. Don’t get in my face for doing my job.”
Sharpton felt a knot form between his eyes. “I’m doing you a favor, Jack. You got in trouble on your last assignment for coloring outside the lines, and here you are doing it again.”
“This is different. Requisitioning local law enforcement without filling out a few forms isn’t the same
as — as that other thing.”
“Did you get him, at least?”
“Oh, I got him,” Jack said, a smile in his voice. “We got — hold on.” He heard a muffled voice off line. Then Jack’s voice came back on, all the smiles gone. “Shit. I’ve got to go.”
The line went dead.
3:45 A.M. PST Greater Nation Compound
Jack had been talking to Sharpton as he left the main house and strode across the compound to the munitions depot. Around him, his team had quickly taken control of the entire compound. Every light in every building now blazed. A group of bleary-eyed Greater Nation wanna-bes sat on the ground, their legs out in front of them and their hands bound by rip-hobble cords behind their backs. As he passed them, Jack saw in some faces the righteous indignation of true believers. In most, though, all he saw was the frightening realization that playing soldier could actually get you into trouble.
The munitions depot was a single-story ranch house. Jack passed through the broken door— battered down like the main house door — and went inside. This building had been stripped down to beige walls and stained carpet. An SEB agent met him at the entrance. “Merrit, sir. Right this way.”
Jack followed Agent Merrit down the main hallway, past several rooms where agents were busy cataloging racks of firearms. “It looks like a National Guard armory in here,” Merrit said. “They’ve even got a fifty caliber machine gun in the garage.”
Another agent stepped out of one of the rooms holding a large metal bracket. “Hey, Merrit,” the other man said. “We found boxes full of these. Any idea what they’re for?”
“Search me,” Merrit said.
“Swivel mounts,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “They were made so you could mount an M-4 on top of a Humvee for better aim.”
“Jesus,” Merrit said. “What were these guys planning to do, invade the country?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “What did you want to show me?”
Merrit led him to the end of the hallway, to a room that would have been the master bedroom in a normal house. Here it was a planning room. There were no weapons, but a large card table and several computer terminals. Two investigators sat at the computer terminals, scanning the files. Jack knew they wouldn’t find much. Paranoia discouraged the Greater Nation from keeping too much information in digital form. They used the Internet for advertising and recruitment, but the juiciest details would be off the grid.
Sure enough, what Merrit showed him was a box full of three-ring binders, spiral notebooks, and frayed blueprints.
“This looks like it was their next target,” Merrit said.
Jack nodded. “I know they were planning on building a cyanide bomb and driving it into Washington—”
“No, sir,” Merrit interrupted. “We found that plan all right. It’s over there.” The agent jabbed a thumb over to another box being tagged by one of the investigators. “This is something else.” He held out a notebook, but Jack didn’t touch it — he’d taken off his gloves.
“Tell me.”
Merrit opened the notebook. “According to this, the militia was tracking some kind of Islamic terrorist cell inside the country.”
Jack felt something cold grope the inside of his stomach. “What terrorist cell?”
“I don’t know—”
“Where is it located?”
“That’s what I wanted you to see,” Merrit said. “It’s here in Los Angeles. And if these notes are right, these Islamic terrorists are going to make an attack. In the next few hours.”
2. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4 A.M. AND 5 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
4:00 A.M. PST San Francisco, California
The phone on Senator Debrah Drexler’s nightstand rang with a sense of urgency. Despite the early hour, the Senator picked it up before it rang a second time. She was still on East Coast time and she’d been awake for an hour.
“Drexler.” Her voice was like the crack of a whip. She had spoken in softer tones, once upon a time, but one abusive marriage and two terms in the United States Senate had covered her softer side in armor.
“Senator Drexler, thank you for taking my call.”
Drexler curled her lip at the mere sound of that voice. “Not at all, Mr. Attorney General. What can I do for you?”
There was a pause on the line. The faint electric hiss of fiber optics and electricity sounded somehow ominous. Finally, Attorney General James Quincy said, “You and I both know what you can do for me. For the country.”
“I work on behalf of my country every day, Mr. Attorney General. And it’s early. You’ll have to be more specific.”
She knew this would irk him. The AG was famous for quick decisions and short conversations. He despised those who wasted time, especially his time. But since he was already quite public about his loathing for the female senator from California, she wasn’t worried about losing points with him.
“Give me your vote on the NAP Act,” he said with his legendary bluntness. “Then I’ll carry Wayans and D’Aquino, and this thing will pass.”
“Sir, are you calling on behalf of the President?” she asked.
“I’m calling on behalf of the country.”
She almost laughed. “Ah, the cheery sound of jingoism in the morning is so pleasant. You should have “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” on in the background when you talk like that.”
Even through the phone line, she could tell that his spine had stiffened at her remarks. “I expect a little more respect than that, Senator. I am the Attorney General of the United States—”
“Then stop acting like a politician,” she snapped. She knew he hated to be interrupted. She’d done the same thing during his nomination hearings, and the press had had a field day with his apoplectic reactions. It almost made her happy he’d been approved, just so she could do it again. “Since when does the Attorney General get on the phone and lobby senators to pass a bill? Use the right wing media like all the other fascists.”
She smiled, waiting for the volcano to erupt. She wasn’t afraid of Quincy’s vesuvian temper. She wasn’t daunted by angry male voices. Her first husband had beaten those weaker tendencies out of her. He’d nearly lost an eye that last time he’d tried to rough her up, and the combination of a painful divorce court and a scar on his neck made her former husband relent. She got alimony and custody of their baby daughter. With her newfound freedom, she’d moved from New York to San Francisco decades ago. I
t was hard at the beginning— very hard — but with her newfound strength, she’d gotten on her feet and, after a few years, she’d entered local politics. Now here she was, arm wrestling with one of the most powerful men in the world. She loved it.
But Quincy didn’t explode. His voice was, in fact, cold and calculated. “I may just use the media, now that you mention it. But I did want to give you one more chance. The New American Privacy Act gives us the power to root out terrorists no matter how they try to hide. The Justice Department needs to be able to dig into records, set up phone taps immediately when we identify a suspect—”
“The only problem with your theory — no, one of the many problems with your theory, Mr. Attorney General, is that the current administration and the FBI both seem to consider anyone who disagrees with them a suspect. If I remember right, last year you investigated people just for going to an anti-Barnes rally.”
“The individuals we focused on had ties to—”
“If you want to debate, let’s go on Sunday morning television,” Drexler said impatiently. “Otherwise, accept the fact that my vote is going to be a no. And I’ll tell anyone who listens to me to vote the same.”
There was another pause on the line. Somehow, Drexler didn’t like it. Quincy wasn’t the kind to give up, and he certainly wasn’t the type to let someone else get the last word in. His calm demeanor put all her empathic sensors on alert. He wasn’t giving up. He was coiling like a cobra.
“Senator, I strongly recommend that you reconsider. Otherwise you may end up regretting your decision.”
Drexler snorted. “You’re not the first man to say that to me.”
4:14 A.M. PST Greater Nation Compound
As the Senator hung up her phone, five hundred miles to the south, Jack Bauer threw open the door of the black SUV. He grabbed Brett Marks by one handcuffed arm and pulled him out of the car. Marks grunted — he was belted into his seat. Bauer barked as though it was the militia man’s fault. He unbuckled Marks, then pulled him, stumbling, out of the car.
“What the hell is this?” Jack said, holding up the notebook from the munitions house.
Marks squinted. There was just enough light from the houses around for him to see the cover of the notebook. He smiled. “Ah, that’s Operation Backup.”
Bauer tapped the notebook against Marks’s head. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”
Marks looked amused by Jack’s loss of composure. “It’s not that complicated, Jack. There is a terrorist cell operating around Los Angeles. Since the Federal government wasn’t doing anything about them, we decided that we would. After all, that’s what the militia is for, if you want to read the Second Amend—”
“No sermons,” Jack rumbled. “Tell me about these terrorists.”
The Greater Nation leader nodded at the notebook. “It’s all in there. We got a tip from some contacts overseas that some terrorists had slipped past the border. We started snooping around a little and we found out how they were connected here. We were going to take them out before they did any harm. See, Jack, it’s like I was saying when you were pretending to be part of the cause. We are patriots.”
“My hero,” Jack mocked. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler — and legal — just to inform the authorities?”
Oddly, for the first time in this whole affair, Brett Marks actually looked surprised. “We did. We called Homeland Security. We called the FBI. They wouldn’t listen to us.”
“Imagine that,” Jack snorted. He flipped open his cell phone and speed dialed the office. “Bauer here,” he said when the gravediggers answered. “Give me Sharpton.”
Kelly was on the line in a moment. “Don’t hang up on me again.”
“Chew me out later,” Jack growled. “I’ve got something here, maybe. There’s some indication here that the Greater Nation was on to an Islamic terrorist cell here.”
“The militia guys were working with Islamic terrorists?”
“No, they were targeting them. Marks claims they uncovered a sleeper cell or something in Los Angeles. He says they reported it. The notes say three months ago. It also says here that these terrorists were planning something soon. Can you check the Domestic Security Alerts?”
“On it. Call you back.”
4:18 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
In his office, Kelly pressed a button on his phone and Jack’s call vanished. He flipped the intercom line and said, “Jessi.”
The voice of Jessi Bandison, the most capable of the gravediggers, came on. “Here.”
“I need you to scan the tip sheets for me. Check Homeland Security’s DSAs for the last six months. Also the FBI logs from local and national.”
“Kelly, I’m not cleared for—”
“When you get to the logs, buzz me and I’ll code you through. I’m looking for anything about tips on terrorists in Los Angeles.”
Jessi buzzed back quickly — she was good at her job — and Kelly half walked, half jumped down the stairs from his loft to the pit where the gravediggers worked. Jessi Bandison — mocha-skinned, curvy, and attractive in all the ways a fashion model was not— watched unblinking as lines of code flashed from bottom to top on her screen. “Nothing in our logs about Islamic terrorists. At least not here in L.A.”
“Okay. Link up with Homeland Security and go through their servers and the FBI logs.”
She did, and a moment later a password screen came up. Kelly typed in his i.d. and password, and a second later they were through to a new level of security.
“So what is this?” Jessi asked.
“The FBI puts out formal alerts to all departments associated with Homeland Security. But they also keep their own logs for internal use. It’s an ongoing intra-net brainstorming session set up after 9/11. Everyone and anyone doing field work or receiving data is supposed to log information of interest here.”
Jessi looked pleasantly surprised. “That’s impressive.”
“It’s bullshit,” Kelly said. He leaned over Jessi. There was a faint smell of jasmine on her neck. He was careful to stare at the screen. “It’s just a CYA gimmick. Everyone’s afraid to miss something, so there’s so much garbage poured into the log all the time that it’s impossible to study it in real time. All it really does is allow you to go back and see if anything was done in the past. That way, if the shit hits the fan, everyone gets sprayed.”
“Thanks for that image.”
At Kelly’s direction, Jessi searched for key words that included terrorist, Islam, Los Angeles, and militia.
4:25 A.M. PST Greater Nation Compound
At the Greater Nation compound, SUV engines were revving as the SEB unit prepared to take their prisoners away. Jack nearly missed the phone call.
“Bauer,” he said.
“Jack, we’ve got nada. No reports, no tips, no nothing. If your weekend warriors told anyone, it must have been the post office.”
“Thanks.” Jack snapped his phone off and glared at Marks. “No tips. Truth is, that’s what I expected. You’re not the type to rely on the government.”
Marks shook his square head. “You don’t get us, Jack. I don’t know why I didn’t see that. We believe that protecting our borders from terrorists is one thing the government should do. Of course I’d tip them if I learned something. But no one did a thing. The only difference between me and you is that you think if you can’t stop it, we regular citizens ought to just lie down and take it. Sorry, that’s not my style.”
“Is that where Newhouse went? You told him to focus on a mission. Was this it?”
Marks said nothing.
“All right. You’re such a patriot, then tell me the plan. Tell me where I can find these terrorists.”
“Absolutely.” The immediacy of his answer surprised Jack. “There’s a family in Beverlywood. A father and a daughter. One of the terrorists is linked to them and we’re sure they know what he’s doing. Our plan was to start with them.”
Jack felt the same cold groping in his stomach,
like an ice-cold eel swimming through his guts. “A father and daughter. What name?”
“It’s all in there,” Marks said. “The address and everything. The name is Rafizadeh.”
The eel in his gut found its home and settled heavily. “Shit,” Bauer said.
* * *
Six months ago. A holding cell inside CTU headquarters, with a bare steel lamp hanging down from the darkness and bright, directed bulb that illuminated an uncomfortable steel table and left the rest of the room in darkness. Jack Bauer stood at the edge of the light, staring down at the man handcuffed to the table. He was an older man, his hands softened by a scholar’s life and his belly rounded by many comfortable meals. The handcuffs weren’t necessary for security — this old man offered risk of neither fight or flight — but they added to Jack’s psychological advantage. The man in the chair was a prisoner. Jack was the jailer.
“Stop protecting them,” Jack growled. “We’ll find them anyway. Then we won’t need you anymore.”
The old man blinked at Jack. His glasses had been taken away — another small part of the psychological war — and he could barely see past the bright lights in his eyes. His cheeks above his thin, gray beard were sunken with fatigue, and three days of questions had bent his back and slumped his shoulders. But his voice was still as firm as the day Jack had brought him in.
“I hope you do them find, whoever they are,” said the old man with a gentle Farsi lilt in his speech. “In the meantime, I once again ask for my lawyer.”
“No.”
Jack let the denial hang in the air. He didn’t explain that the Patriot Act gave him permission to detain suspected terrorists — even U.S. citizens — indefinitely. The denial held more power without the rationale behind it. Of course, he also didn’t explain that even with the broadened powers the Patriot Act gave him, Jack’s hold on this old man was tenuous, and based on little more than one email picked up by the FBI’s Internet-searching