by John Whitman
“Javie, he’s coming!” one of the other gang-bangers shouted.
The Salvatrucha Javie jumped out from behind a corner and was surprised to see Jack already on top of him. Jack punched him in the face and drove his forehead in right behind the punch, feeling the crown of his head connect with a cheekbone, splitting it. He grabbed Javie’s collar and put a knee into his ribs. Then, stepping past him, he kicked his legs back, sweeping the gang-banger’s feet out from under him. Javie hit the ground hard. Jack raised his knee and stomped on the man’s face.
He walked back down the aisle to the table. Oscar was still curled up on the ground. The other two were on top of Ramirez, one holding him and the other punching him in the face. They were bullies, not soldiers. They had pounced on the weakest member rather than focusing on the real threat. Their mistake.
As soon as Jack reappeared, the puncher turned on him. He was fast, and probably tough, but not skilled. He came at Jack with a killer sneer and two big, flailing hands. Jack threw two straight punches right down the middle. He felt one of the Salvatrucha’s punches box the side of his skull, stinging but doing no damage, while both his punches hit the man in the throat. He gagged. Jack ducked low and put a left hook in the man’s liver. The man stood back for a minute, blinking as though Jack’s punch had no effect. Then his knees buckled.
The last attacker was faster. He’d already thrown Ramirez off, and before Jack could turn he grabbed him from behind, lifted him, and slammed him onto the table. Jack felt his left shoulder go numb and hoped it wasn’t broken. The Salvatrucha tried to lift him again, but Jack dropped his weight, going heavy, then spinning around inside the man’s arms. He dug both hands into the gang-banger’s face and eyes, not just pushing but tearing at the flesh. The man gave a strangled cry and tried to push Jack away, but Jack forced the man’s chin up, then drove it backward and down, doubling the inmate over. Jack released one hand and punched him in the face.
He paused, gasping for breath. His heart was pounding, but his senses were alert. He scanned the room, searching out additional threats. Finding none, his eyes settled on Ramirez, who was staring at him in utter astonishment.
“Holy shit,” the man said. “Who are you?”
“The guy you want on your side.”
“No kidding.” Ramirez looked at the four men, two unconscious, two groaning and quivering in the middle of their own misery. “Who, what do these guys want with you?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said truthfully. It couldn’t be that old event, could it? He’d needed some information from an MS–13 member, but the case itself had little to do with the gang, and once he’d gotten his information, Jack hadn’t touched them again. He couldn’t believe they’d hold a grudge for that, especially against someone they knew to be law enforcement. But he couldn’t think of any other reason. He certainly hadn’t attracted their attention inside the jail.
“You okay?” he thought to ask.
Ramirez’s face was bloody. The punches had surely broken his nose, and his cheek was cut open. A huge mouse was already forming under his right eye, and his teeth were smeared with blood from a cut inside his mouth. “I’m not much of a fighter. And these. ” He shook his head at the four men. “They don’t stop. I know that about them. They never forget, and now they’re not going to forget me.”
“They weren’t after you,” Jack said, still wondering what they were after.
“No, but now I’m part of it. Jesus! I heard a story about them once, that some gang member talked to the Feds and went into the witness protection program. They lost him for seven years. Seven years! He didn’t even testify against them, he just got out. Then one day he turned up dead, the skin peeled off his hands. They cut his throat.” He shuddered.
“You don’t like them, but you said your boss uses them.”
“Not my boss,” Ramirez corrected.“Just a guy I know.”
“Right. This guy who’s got something planned for tomorrow. If MS guys like these are involved, it’s probably not going to go well.”
Ramirez pinched his lips closed. He used his sleeve to dab the blood off his cheek and nose. “You wondering about that little thing tomorrow, huh?”
Jack shook his head. “I have enough of my own problems. Just curious about these.” He kicked Oscar with his toe. “Hey, you,” he said. “What are you after? What am I to you?”
Oscar looked up at him, tears in his eyes. “A dead man.”
9:37 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Less than twenty minutes had elapsed since Ryan Chappelle had collapsed in the CTU conference room. Five minutes after he’d fallen, the medics were there, and ten minutes after that — ten minutes full of CPR, three applications of the defibrillator paddles, and several medications to stabilize him — a medical team moved Ryan Chappelle out of CTU and toward a waiting ambulance. A moment or two after the defibrillator had restarted his heart, Chappelle had actually opened his eyes. His eyes rolled for a moment, unfocused, and finally settled on Henderson’s angular face.
“Don’t. ” he mouthed. The word was barely audible.
“Just relax, sir,” the medic said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Chappelle pushed the hand away weakly. “Don’t. ” he said again, his voice a faint breath slipping out of his body, “. let. ”
Henderson leaned close, with Tony Almeida beside him.
Chappelle shuddered. “. Bauer. ” he gasped. “Don’t. Bauer.”
He passed out.
“Crashing again!” the medic yelled. He snatched up the defibrillator paddles again and shouted, “Clear!” He barely waited for the others to step back before shocking Chappelle’s heart again. Chappelle’s body convulsed, and his heart beat faintly in the portable monitor. “Okay, go!” the medic ordered.
“Do we go with him?” Tony asked.
Henderson nodded. “I’ll follow.”
“What was he saying, about Bauer?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does he think we’re going to let Jack do while he’s in jail? Don’t let him what?”
“Delirium, probably,” Henderson guessed.
Tony paused. “You know, no one’s been talking lately about Jack.”
Henderson watched the medics wheel Ryan Chappelle out the front door. “This may not be the time, Tony.”
“Yeah, but now’s when it’s come up. There’s no one here that thinks Jack Bauer really killed an innocent man in cold blood. Is there?”
Henderson turned back toward Tony. They were opposites in appearance — Tony had a soft face with sad eyes, a sharp contrast to Henderson’s steel blue gaze. But underneath, both men were made of the same hard, dark material.
“You’re asking if I believe it,” Henderson said. He paused for a moment.
“You have to think about it,” Tony said disdainfully. “You and Jack, you’ve been on bad terms since Internal Affairs started looking into that missing money.”
“That’s nothing,” Henderson said dismissively. “It’ll go nowhere. No, I’m wondering what I’ve done to make you think I’m that much of an ass. I brought Jack Bauer in here. I’ve stuck my neck out for him before. No, I don’t think he’s guilty of murder. But that guy getting rolled out on the stretcher did, and I have a feeling that a jury is going to see it that way, too.”
9:46 P.M. PST Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles
The guards returned to the library, conveniently, when the fighting was done. One of them, a squishy-faced guard with an oversized lower lip, was the same guard who had disappeared just before the Salvatruchas appeared, but he was accompanied by a platoon of officers headed by an older black officer with the blasé look of a man who’d seen everything one could see inside a prison. His name tag said “Lafayette” on it.
“Get the four-pieces,” Officer Lafayette said with a slow Louisiana drawl. “Hook these boys up and get ’em into isolation.”
The platoon produced four-piece steel wrist and ankle cuffs, conne
cted by chains, and began to fetter the four gang-bangers. Oscar was still doubled over and could barely walk from the pain in his groin. Jack was sure he’d ruptured something and wished the Salvatrucha a slow and unsuccessful recovery.
“You gonna get fucked, blondie,” Oscar said as he was led away.
“Well, you’re not gonna be doing it,” Jack said. The guards tugged Oscar out the door.
Lafayette turned to Jack. His low-slung posture and heavy sigh told Jack he didn’t expect to get much information. “You gonna tell me what happened?”
Jack believed the guard hoped to hear a no. “Your guy, the one with the swollen lip, took a coffee break right about the time these four showed up. They tried to kill us, but we took them down first.”
Lafayette leaned to the side, looking past Jack at Ramirez, who was still slumped against the table. The guard looked back at Jack and chewed the inside of his mouth. “We, huh?”
Jack decided he needed to get some help. “Look, I don’t know why these guys have come after me twice, but I’ve had enough of it. I need to speak with Officer Cox right away.”
Lafayette shook his head. “That ain’t possible.”
Jack insisted. “If you talk to him, he’ll explain everything, even if you have to call him back in to the office. I promise you, he’ll want to know.”
“You ain’t gettin’ me, son, it ain’t possible. Cox took a shiv under the ribs not half an hour ago. He didn’t make it.”
Jack felt a firm, cold pressure start in the bottom of his chest, a sense of some danger long present but only now discovered. “Then the warden. He’ll want to talk to me if you tell him my name.”
“Can’t do that, either. Warden took sick this afternoon. He’s in the hospital.”
The pressure built up into Jack’s lungs, tightening them, though he showed no emotion whatsoever. “Then call him there. Trust me, he’ll want to know this—”
“He ain’t takin’ calls. What I heard, he’s had a heart attack or something.”
The pressure reached Jack’s heart, nearly freezing it. He looked around him, and for the first time in three weeks, he felt as if he were in jail.
3. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 P.M. AND 11 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
10:00 P.M. PST Bauer Residence
Peter Jiminez knocked on the door. The woman who opened it was lean, with short-cropped hair. She was pretty in a homey sort of way, but dark circles hung heavily below her eyes.
“Mrs. Bauer? Peter Jiminez, I worked with your husband. Sorry for the late hour. We’ve actually met twice, once right after I came on and a couple of weeks ago when—”
“Yes, I remember, um, Peter. How are you?”
Peter shifted a little uncomfortably. “Well, ma’am, I just, I wanted to stop by and talk to you. I just can’t get my head around Jack being in jail.”
Teri bit her lip and looked past Peter, as though expecting to see someone else there. “Come in, Peter.”
Teri stepped back and let him enter, feeling as she did as if she was allowing the CTU agent to cross some sort of boundary. Her relationship to Jack’s work was, by nature, distant and difficult. At the moment it was also tragic.
Peter looked as uncomfortable as she felt. He had a boyish look for a CTU agent, with a plump face and a ruler-straight part in his thick black hair. He wore a blue suit and dress shirt, but no tie. This Peter Jiminez might have been a young movie executive or a banker, but Teri knew from experience that he would have a gun slung under his arm, and probably another hidden somewhere.
“Can I get you something?” she offered, motioning him to sit on the living room couch. She took a seat in a chair across from the table.
“No, ma’am, thank you,” he replied. “I don’t want to trouble you. Truth is, I’m not even sure why I’m here. Do you mind if I just jump right in? Here’s the thing: when my chance came to join CTU, I jumped at it, because I wanted to work with your husband.”
“Did you know him?”
“Not him personally, but his reputation. CTU guys don’t talk much about their work, that’s true of a lot of agencies, of course. But word gets around. I was in Diplomatic Security Services when they started the CTU program. We did protective services — bodyguard stuff, but we don’t like using the word bodyguard. I was too young to get in, but this is where I wanted to be. So I jumped from DSS to the CIA. In the CIA, of course, I heard all kinds of stuff about what CTU was doing. I’ve got to tell you that Jack’s name came up a lot.”
“I’m sure it did,” Teri said wryly.
Peter laughed. “Well, there was some colorful language attached to his name sometimes. But he also had a reputation for getting the job done. So I jumped into CTU the first chance I got. Two months on the job, and now this happens.”
Teri pulled her feet up and crossed her legs in the chair. This Peter Jiminez was very sincere, but she was confused. Did he want her to be his counselor? If so, he had another think coming. She had a daughter whose father was in jail for murder. “Agent Jiminez, is there something you need from me?”
“I just don’t think he did it, ma’am,” Peter insisted. “Not without a good reason. But there’s no one looking into it on his side. CTU has just written him off. I figured”— he fixed his eyes on her to let her know how serious his statement was—“I figured I’d see what I could do on my own to help out, and I thought I’d start by asking you if there’s any direction you might point me.”
So it was an investigation. Teri folded her arms across her chest. She wasn’t sure if Jiminez’s schoolboy demeanor was an act or his true persona, but she’d been around Jack long enough to recognize a good-cop interrogation when she saw one.
“Agent Jiminez,” she said, her voice hardening ever so slightly. “You have to know that there were lots of things about Jack’s work that he didn’t discuss at home.”
“Of course, ma’am. It’s just that. well, to be honest, a man will sometimes tell his wife things that he won’t tell anyone else.”
Teri laughed, but it was a small thing, with a bitter sound in it. “There are probably more things a man won’t tell his wife.”
Jiminez actually blushed. He really was a schoolboy. “Maybe you’re right, ma’am. But if you don’t mind me saying so, you seem like someone to trust. I’m wondering if there was something going on at the agency that Jack didn’t like. Something he might have confided in you. Maybe someone else was out to get him?”
“You think he was set up.”
Peter held his hands up, warding off the suggestion. “I’m not saying anything for sure, ma’am. I’m just wondering if he said anything to you about trouble with anyone else at the agency.”
Teri shook her head. “You may or may not know that my marriage with Jack has had some pretty rough patches, and pretty recently.”
Jiminez fidgeted in his seat, but nodded. “Ma’am.”
“There’ve been times when we’ve barely spoken and when we did, it wasn’t about his work. There are times when he’s gone for days at a time, and he comes home without a single word about where he’s been or what he’s done. For all I know, he’s saved the world from a nuclear bomb. Or maybe he’s just been in somebody else’s bed. I never know. So no, he’s never told me about any trouble at work. But I will tell you one thing I do know.” Now it was her turn to fix her eyes on him. Her gaze bored into him in a look she had long practiced. “The one thing I do know is that Jack is capable of anything.”
10:11 P.M. PST Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles
Jack followed Ramirez back into their cell, escorted by Lafayette and two other guards. As soon as the door was locked, Jack turned to the officer. “I need to get in touch with someone on the outside. Can you make a call for me?”
“Call tomorrow,” Lafayette drawled lazily. The trouble was over for now, and he wanted to move on before this became something that required paperwork.
“I can’t wait,” Jack said. “This gang will keep coming a
t me. Look, all I’m asking is for you to make a one-minute phone call.”
Lafayette frowned at him. He was fit for a man in his early fifties, but he wore all those years in the lines of his face when he frowned. “You know what it’d be if I made a one-minute call for every bird in this cage?”
“They’re not all getting killed. Come on, thirty seconds.”
The lines on the guard’s face deepened. “Awright. I make this call, you forget all about this fight tonight. Then I don’t have to do paperwork.”
Jack agreed. He gave Lafayette the number to CTU. “Tell them you’re calling for Ryan Chappelle. Tell them it’s an emergency. When you get Chappelle, tell him you’re calling because things are going south. Say exactly that, okay?”
Lafayette had been reluctant at first, but he also didn’t like too many fights on his watch. A scuffle here and there between inmates was all right — hell, sometimes it was downright entertaining — but he didn’t like what was going on with these Salvatruchas and Bauer. There was some bad sauce on those ribs, like his mama always said. He locked Jack back in his cell and moseyed down to the guard’s office behind its Plexiglas walls.
Lafayette had returned a few minutes later. “You’re having a bad day,” he said to Jack. “Or maybe it’s everyone around you’s having a bad day.”
“Did you tell him? Jack had asked eagerly.
“Nope,” the corrections officer said. “Couldn’t. He’s in the hospital, too.”
Lafayette had walked away, his job done. But Jack clutched the bars of his cage, squeezing until his knuckles turned white.
But it wasn’t in him to panic. He let go of the bars and watched the color flow back into his fingers. Observe. Assess. Act. That was how battles were won. He had suddenly become a target of MS–13, and since MS–13 was a major force in Los Angeles, and ran a crime syndicate that violated dozens of Federal laws, this Federal jail was crowded with Salvatruchas. They’d keep coming at him from different angles until they put him down. Adam Cox, who was more valuable to Jack than anyone in here knew, was dead. The warden, whom Jack could have turned to, was out of commission, maybe dead, too, for all Jack knew. And now Chappelle. It was certainly no coincidence that the three people he could turn to had all been neutralized.