by John Whitman
Briefly, very briefly, he considered abandoning his plan. He’d done so before. No particular scheme held any special place in his heart. His goal was anarchical, not political, and he had always adhered to the maxim that discretion was the better part of valor. There would be other targets.
Yet, he had to admit, he was feeling something else; something new. Pride. That was it. His ego was now involved. No one had ever come close to laying a hand on him, and here this Agent Bauer had come within arm’s reach of him twice in less than twenty-four hours. He was proving to be a formidable opponent.
4:37 P.M. PST Century Plaza Hotel
“Gentlemen, we have to wrap up,” said Martin Webb, rising from the conference table.
The three other men at the table also stood up. The nearest, Frank Nye, from the Board of Directors of Dow Jones, looked aghast. Martin had never seen him in anything but a three-piece pin-striped suit done for him in Bond Street in London. Today he was wearing khaki slacks and a polo shirt. “Marty, you can’t be serious.”
“Why not?” the Fed Chairman asked.
“Well, well,” Nye huffed, “the problem’s still in front of us.”
Martin nodded seriously. “And it won’t be solved on a Saturday night.”
One of the other men, Marion Zimmer, staggered forward. Old enough to have been born when Marion was still a man’s name, his body creaked but his mind was still sharp. “Come Monday, if the markets crash, the country will go with it. You’re the one with your finger in the dike, Webb, and you want to go? We were scheduled for another hour. I flew all the way from—”
“I think we’ve covered everything,” Martin said. He wanted to see his grandson’s fight, although, truth be told, they really had covered everything. They were four old men who wielded great power, but because they were so old, and had wielded power for so long, they’d forgotten that power had its limits. At a certain point, the markets had to be left to chance. “I know what to say tomorrow in the news. I’ll put a brave face on for Monday’s bell, and the rest will take care of itself.”
He left them behind, their faces frozen like old, wrinkled stone, and headed down to a car waiting to drive him to Staples Center.
4:41 P.M. PST 405 Freeway, Sepulveda Pass, Los Angeles
Pan needed the money, so he’d taken one part of the Zapata job himself. That way he could keep his overall cut, plus one-sixth of the share for the drivers.
Besides, this was the weirdest thing he’d ever heard of, and he wanted to see it up close.
He was driving northbound on the 405 Freeway, one of the main arteries that carried traffic into and out of Los Angeles, and even on a Saturday, it was packed. However, because it wasn’t a work day, there was just enough space to gather speed, which was what Pan did as he moved toward the top of the pass.
Zapata had given explicit instructions as to where he should do the job — at least a hundred yards below the Mulholland Avenue exit. So just as he drove underneath the sign that said MULHOLLAND EXIT ¼ MILE, Pan did his job: he gunned the engine and swerved hard into traffic, shutting his eyes tight. He heard the shrill squeal of tires, felt the jarring impact of another car before he heard the horn sound, and then his world went white as the airbag exploded outward. Vaguely he heard crash after crash after crash as the Saturday drivers on their way out of the city smashed into one another.
At almost exactly the same time over on the 101 Freeway, Pan’s friend Doogie did almost exactly the same thing.
This happened six times, on two other major freeways, and on two main surface streets in West Los Angeles. At the moment, as far as anyone knew, they were just six separate accidents on the Los Angeles freeways.
4:49 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
If there was anything Jack hated worse than Chappelle’s tirades, it was Chappelle being right when he went on one.
“All this goddamned work for nothing!” the Regional Director fumed. “You let him walk out the front door.”
Jack had learned long ago to face his mistakes, not to garner sympathy but in order to move beyond them toward a solution. “I’ll fix it.”
“How?”
“Still working on it.”
Jack pushed past Chappelle and into the main part of the headquarters. “Jamey! Seth!” But he had already reached them by the time they jumped to their feet.
“He’s here, he’s after something,” Jack said without a hello. “I need to know what it is. Now.” Jamey said, “We’ve already run down our list of possible targets. The Pacific Rim Forum fit all the criteria.”
“We’re missing something,” Jack said. His mind was racing. There was a pattern here, the kind of pattern Zapata would have seen. He was missing it, and that made him angry. “We have to find it.”
“Uh. ” It was Seth. “Can I go?”
Jack was startled. “What? No!”
Seth glanced from Jack to Jamey, hoping she’d be more sympathetic. She was his direct superior, but this Jack Bauer seemed to take charge of whatever situation he was in. “Um, I want to go. I’ve been here since yesterday.” Jack and Jamey continued to stare at him. “Yesterday being a whole day ago. I haven’t seen the sun.”
“We’ve got a job to do, Seth,” Jamey said. “I’ve been doing it,” the young man replied. “I have plans tonight.” Jack curled his lip. “Tell her you can go out tomorrow night.”
“It’s not that. I’m going to the fights tonight. Silva versus Harmon, baby!” he said excitedly, but he saw that they didn’t understand what he was talking about. He pleaded to Jack. “Oh, come on, you must watch mixed martial arts fights.”
Jack shook his head.
“Well, there are huge fights tonight, and I have tickets. It’s the Professional Reality Fighting championships. I really don’t want to miss it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Jack said.
“No, I’m not. Those tickets cost me two hundred bucks.”
Jack shook his head. “Not that. The name. Did you say Professional Reality Fighting?”
22. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5 P.M. AND 6 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
5:00 P.M. PST Staples Center
Mark Kendall was sitting on the floor of the room that served as his waiting room and training room as his corner, Max Kominsky, wrapped his hands. Kominsky wasn’t big on pep talks, so he kept quiet while Mark brooded. He wanted to call home again, but Kominsky had drawn the line at three calls. Fight time approached.
Someone knocked on the door and then opened it. A black face with an infectious toothy grin popped in and spoke in Portuguese. Mark recognized him immediately: Salvatore Silva, the current heavyweight champion. An older face appeared beside him, square-jawed and missing several teeth. Ramon Machado, the trainer they called the kingmaker.
“He says good luck,” Machado translated.
Kendall nodded, not standing up so that Kominsky could finish his work. “Tell him I said thanks.”
More Portuguese. The big black man’s dark, gleaming eyes studied Mark over his toothy grin. “The champion says he hopes you will win. ”
“Thanks again,” Mark said.
“. because he’d rather fight you than Jake Webb!” Salvatore Silva roared with laughter and disappeared.
Mark heaved a huge sigh. “They’re all against us, Maxie,” he said.
Kominsky shrugged. “Me, I get nervous around company anyway.”
5:04 P.M. PST Staples Center
Martin Webb reached downtown Los Angeles just ahead of what looked like unbelievably bad traffic. His driver, Johan, said there were bad accidents all over the freeways, and that the traffic was snarled all across the city. They parked across the street from the Staples Center and walked to “will call,” where Jake had left tickets for them.
The big black lady behind the counter took his name and plucked the tickets out of a file box. She eyeballed Martin as she put the tickets in his hand. “You’re Martin Webb, the Fed guy.”
Marti
n nodded with a wink and a confidential smile. “Tonight I’m just a grandfather.”
She bobbed her head at him. “Well, you better come back as the Chairman come Monday mornin’, ’cause I’m countin’ on my stocks to help me climb outta here.” She motioned to the four beige walls of the tiny ticket office.
Martin smiled. “Ma’am, I don’t really control the stock market—”
“Oh, I know you do.” The big lady laughed, ignoring customers that were coming up behind them. “You wave your magic wand and make it all better. Enjoy the fights, ya’ll.”
The Fed Chairman nodded at her and went inside, accompanied by Johan. Jake had reserved great seats for them. They weren’t floor seats because, according to Jake, you really couldn’t see the raised cage from down there. They sat in the first row of the raised seats, with an eye-line view of the fenced cage where the fighters would meet.
“Do you ever watch these fights, Johan?” Martin asked.
Johan, who acted as the Fed Chairman’s bodyguard and driver, nodded. “Machado is going to take him apart in the first minute, I think.”
“Excuse me, excuse me!” someone said, pushing past the Fed Chairman. A man with a shaved head slipped past them and sat down a few seats away. “Oh, I’m glad I made it,” he said with a grin at Martin. “The traffic’s terrible!”
5:14 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Chris Henderson was sitting in his office when the call he’d been dreading came in. “Agent Henderson, this is Anthony Becker, Internal Affairs.”
Henderson’s heart sank, but he was a professional. His voice was steady. “Internal Affairs? Don’t they give you guys weekends off?”
“We need to interview you, Agent Henderson,” Becker returned. “I think you know what it’s about.”
Henderson squeezed the handset next to his ear until his knuckles turned white. Damn, damn, damn. “Well, okay. First thing Monday. Do you want me to come to you?”
“Actually, tomorrow is better. Better to get it over with, you know?” Agent Becker said smoothly. “Then you have the whole week ahead of you once you’re cleared.”
“Right,” Henderson said. “Sunday it is.”
He hung up, then used the intercom. A moment later Peter Jiminez marched up the stairs to Henderson’s office.
“Close the door,” Henderson ordered. Peter did so. Once they were alone, Henderson’s normally stoic features bunched up into a violent bundle of knots and veins and muscles. “Why the hell is Jack Bauer still alive!”
5:17 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Jack hung up the phone. “Get this. Webb had no definite plans to see the fights until today. That’s why the visit wasn’t on our schedule.”
“But,” Seth asked, “if even the target didn’t know he was going to be there, how would Zapata know?” “Because that’s what he does,” Chappelle interjected. “Get down there, Bauer.”
5:18 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Peter Jiminez glared back at Chris Henderson. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do!”
Henderson stood up from his seat, pacing the width of his small office. “Jesus, this is bad. Internal Affairs wants to interview me tomorrow. They’re not coming in on a Sunday to run a Bible study with me. Damn it!”
Christopher Henderson’s plan had almost worked. It had come so close to working so many times in the last few hours.
He’d been behind it from the beginning, of course. Bauer’s testimony would seal his fate once Internal Affairs started chasing the misappropriated funds. Jack had to die. Henderson had known it for weeks. The only question was how to do it without being blamed.
Chappelle had kept his little Zapata scheme close to the vest, but Henderson was no idiot. There was no mission being run out of his field office that he didn’t catch wind of, even one as tight as this. In fact, the confidential nature of the scheme was what inspired Henderson to hatch his own plot. Only a few people had known that Jack Bauer was innocent, and that his presence in the Federal Holding Facility was a setup to get him close to Zapata. Henderson had planned carefully to have them removed, so that Bauer would have no avenues of escape. Chappelle had been the easiest of the three — a large dose of barbiturates had put him down almost immediately. Henderson had known the hospital would conduct blood tests, of course, but he was a clandestine operative. Slipping into a hospital lab and switching the test results had been child’s play.
Bargaining with the MS–13 gang-bangers had proved relatively easy as well. Smiley Lopez had been eager to hire his men out as killers, especially when Henderson offered reduced or commuted sentences as a prize (the fact that he could not actually have had any sentences reduced did not bother him at all). That Jack had embarrassed some of their soldiers once before gave the Salvatruchas additional motivation.
It should have been easy. It should have been over hours ago. Isolate Jack in the jail. Have the Salvatruchas kill him. Over, done, end of story.
But it hadn’t happened that way. Jack Bauer had fought off the assassins not once but twice. In fact, the bastard had somehow used the fights to get even closer to his quarry Ramirez, and once he realized he was isolated, he’d somehow organized a prison riot to cover his escape.
From that moment on, Henderson’s plan had gone downhill. He’d put Jiminez on Jack’s trail, first watching the Bauer house. That lead had turned hot almost immediately when Bauer contacted his wife and asked her to make a delivery for him. Henderson, trying to keep himself and Jiminez at arm’s length, had sent MS–13 again, but they’d proved just as inept out of prison as in.
“You had him,” Henderson swore under his breath. “You had him in your hands and you let him get away.”
Jiminez knew exactly what he was talking about. He’d gone downtown to find Jack and deal with him, but the U.S. Marshals had picked him up first. Even Henderson had to admit that the younger agent had taken a bold step: ramming Pascal’s car and freeing Jack. Jiminez’s intention had been to help Jack escape, kill him, and dump him somewhere. But he hadn’t expected Jack to overpower him.
They had one more crack at Bauer when he assumed Studhalter’s identity. Jiminez had let him escape, hoping he’d contact his Ukrainian suppliers, which he’d done. But once again Bauer had fought out of his predicament. The man was a goddamned prodigy.
The only thing that had gone right was when Jiminez got to Smiley Lopez first. Jack had left him alive, of course, but Lopez might have identified Henderson as the man who’d plotted to have Jack murdered, so
Jiminez had put him out of his misery.
“So what now?” Jiminez said. “We giving up?”
“Give up?” Henderson said in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “Follow the nice men to the prison? No. You need to kill Jack Bauer.”
“What, right now, in the middle of CTU? I’m not going to prison for you.”
“We both took a piece of that money,” Henderson retorted. “You’re going to prison anyway, unless you kill him.”
Jiminez knew he was right. There was no way he was going to spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth over a few hundred thousand dollars that no one should have missed anyway. And if Jack Bauer had to die to make sure Peter Jiminez didn’t end up fighting off bull queers in prison every day, then so be it.
Henderson’s phone rang. He answered and listened for a minute, then nodded. “Good, keep me informed.” He hung up and smiled at Peter. Now’s your chance. Jack just left for the Staples Center.”
5:25 P.M. PST Staples Center
Zapata sat a few seats from the Chairman of the Fed, glancing his way once in a while but mostly observing the crowd slowly filling up the huge sports arena. The fights were sold out, with most spectators there to watch the much-anticipated title fight between Salvatore Silva and Ben Harmon. The Kendall-Webb fight was on the undercard, and was scheduled as the second fight of the night.
Several giant monitors hung from the high ceiling. Later, they would show the fight
to the spectators in the cheap seats, but for now, they showed promotional video with interviews of the fighters, their past records, and highlights from earlier fights. The more he watched, the more certain Zapata became that Kendall would lose his fight. Young Webb was peaking, and Kendall was washed up. And the moment he lost, his chances of earning any big money from the fight game were reduced to zero, and he would take the offer.
5:32 P.M. PST 101 Freeway, Los Angeles
Jack’s car sat in the middle of the worst traffic he’d ever seen in Los Angeles. The freeway was a parking lot, and according to the news, every other freeway looked exactly like this one.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said to Tony Almeida over the phone. “Can you get to the Staples Center?” “I can’t even get to the freeway!” Almeida yelled in general frustration.
Jack hung up and dialed CTU, getting Chappelle. “We’ve already alerted security at the Staples Center,” the Regional Director said before Jack could even ask. “They can’t roll any more units downtown.
The whole city’s paralyzed. But they have three or four black-and-whites there for every event. I’m having those uniforms go inside and stay close to the Chairman.”
“Good,” Jack said. “I’m on the 101 near Cahuenga. Can you send a helicopter for me?”
Chappelle paused. “Are you serious?”
“I guarantee you Zapata is there. I need to be there now. I’ve seen his face.”
Chapelle said, “We should evacuate. Or lock down.”
“No,” Jack replied sharply. “He’ll find a way out. I don’t want to warn him.”
He hung up before Chappelle could object. He glared at the endless stream of cars before him, gleaming in the last rays of sunlight like a river of steel. “What the hell’s going on!” he yelled.