According to their intelligence, the space now occupied by Green Dragon was formerly a Japanese supermarket, which explained the cavernous loading dock. Right now, the steel doors had been rolled up, the bright fluorescent lights filling the street.
Captain Schneider stared at the screen in front of her. “I’ve got a good picture. I’m zooming in.”
The tires hissed on the pavement. Tony kept his face pointed straight ahead. “What do you see?” he whispered.
Jessica Schneider crouched low in the seat, straw-colored hair around her face, booted foot resting on the dash. Her pose was casual, almost sleepy, but her eyes focused intently on the screen as her fingers manipulated the controls.
“There are four men, one supervising. He’s armed. An AK–47 is slung over his shoulder. A Dodge cargo truck — unmarked — is parked in the dock, the driver inside. The men are packing something up in a wooden crate, right there on the loading ramp. Can’t tell what it is. I’ll have to zoom in closer.”
The SUV was almost past the open bay when Jessica Schneider spoke again. “It’s a Long Tooth missile launcher. They’re preparing it for shipment.”
The building now behind them, the video screen went blank. Tony hung a left on Omar Street, pulled up to the curb. “I’ve got to call this in,” he said, reaching for the radio. “We need backup to take this place down, seize that truck.”
“No time to wait!” Jessica Schneider insisted. Before Tony could stop her, she was out the door and around the corner.
“Son of a—” Tony switched off the engine, secured the vehicle. Then he drew his P228 and took off after his partner. He rounded the corner in time to see Jessica race up East Third, boots clicking on the sidewalk. Near the Green Dragon loading dock, she drew a Marine Corps — issue Beretta 92F from her jacket.
Someone cried out a warning in Chinese. A shot struck the concrete near Captain Schneider’s boot. She aimed her weapon in the direction of the roof, squeezed off two shots. There was a howl of surprise and pain; a body plunged down the side of the building, hit the sidewalk with a wet smack. Feet pumping, Tony was about ten yards from Jessica when the Dodge truck roared out of the loading dock so fast the woman barely had time to roll out of its way. The vehicle bounced into the street in a shower of sparks, crossed two lanes of traffic, and sped away.
Tony turned to check on Captain Schneider. She was running up the loading ramp, firing. One man pitched off the raised platform, the AK–47 still in his grip.
“Wait! It might be a trap!” Tony called.
Ignoring him, Jessica burst through the double doors and stormed into the building, gun blazing.
“Don’t lie to me, Mr. Timko. We know you helped a man named Jack Bauer last night.”
Frank Hensley, flanked by a pair of FBI agents, leaned against the bar. Waiting for Georgi Timko to reply, he scanned the tavern’s cheap yet suspiciously tidy interior: tables, chairs, booths, a wall-sized mirror behind the bar. Hensley could smell fresh paint.
Georgi gazed impassively at the FBI agent. Hensley and his men had swept in for a predawn raid, searching for Jack Bauer. By the time the Federal agents arrived, however, all evidence of the violence the night before had been eradicated, the bodies disposed of. Georgi was confident. He knew an FBI search would turn up nothing he did not want to be found.
“I don’t know this Bauer fellow,” said Georgi. “Perhaps if you describe him.”
“We know he was here. We found Bauer’s Glock outside, in the parking lot,” said Hensley, displaying the weapon stashed in a clear evidence bag. “This weapon was used to kill two Federal marshals.”
Timko shrugged. “Never saw it before. Perhaps it belongs to one of my customers. Many of them come from…how do you say it? Broken homes and troubled backgrounds.” He smiled.
Another agent arrived, conferred quietly with Hensley. Timko knew the man was telling his superior that a search had turned up nothing but the Glock. Timko suppressed a chuckle, knowing he’d been successful. All they found was what he wanted them to find…
The dark horizon bled color, dull purple edging out the black. Though the steel span of the Brooklyn Bridge was still swathed in shadows, the first hint of dawn was touching the sky. Jack drove past the ramp that would take them across the bridge to lower Manhattan. The city’s skyline, dominated by the twin World Trade Towers looming over Battery Park, was a mass of mammoth black boxes dotted with bars of lights and topped with peaks, spires, spidery antenna arrays.
Caitlin, her fragile features pensive in the dim dashboard light, had said little beyond offering directions since they’d left Queens. Though Jack was itching to interrogate her further, he held back. He knew the worry she felt for her brother was clouding her thoughts, and Jack doubted he would get much useful information out of her in any case.
The cell chirped. It was Nina, with intelligence information on the leads he’d provided CTU.
“Interpol identified the man from the image you transmitted to us,” she began. “Shamus Lynch is an alias for Patrick Duggan. For decades, he and his brother, Finbar Duggan, were international arms smugglers for the Irish Republican Army and the PLO. Both men are suspected of involvement in several bombings and attempted bombings in Northern Ireland. The brothers were born in Hillsborough, a small town south of Belfast. Their father was beaten by British soldiers during a protest march in 1972—just a week before the Bloody Sunday massacre. The man initially survived the beating but died weeks later. Their mother died a few years after their father. She was killed by a pub bomb believed to have been planted by a loyalist paramilitary group, possibly the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name used by the Ulster Defense Association. Reading between the lines, it appears Patrick’s older brother, Fin-bar, joined the Irish Republican Army after their mother’s death. He would have been around twenty at the time, making Patrick no more than ten, but apparently he went along for the ride.”
“What led to their flight from Ireland then?”
“Seems there was some kind of botched attempt on Queen Elizabeth II’s life during her trip to the Shetland Islands in 1981 to mark the official opening of an oil terminal. The Duggan brothers were involved in handling and planting the explosives, but their information on the royal route was a setup. The explosion only destroyed property some miles away from the Queen’s location, and the British swept up almost all of their associates in a dragnet.
“The Duggans very narrowly escaped, fled by ship with the help of IRA arms suppliers and PLO sympathizers. They surfaced in Somalia, where they began their gunrunning business by working for a local warlord. During that time Patrick’s older brother was critically injured — there were even unconfirmed reports he’d been killed. Interpol was so sure Finbar Duggan was incapacitated, they moved his dossier to the inactive list.”
“Apparently he’s recovered,” said Jack.
“Watch out, Jack. The Duggan brothers are tech savvy and well-versed in explosives and terror tactics. Finbar was trained by Dmitri Rabinoff—”
“Listen, Jack. Jamey also ran the name Taj through CTU’s database of known terrorists and their associates. We tagged the search geographically, targeting the region around New York City and came up with a possible link. Are you familiar with the name Taj Ali Kahlil?”
“No.”
“During the Soviet occupation, Taj Ali Kahlil became a national hero for downing Soviet HIND helicopters with Stinger ground-to-air missiles smuggled into Afghanistan by the CIA.
“After the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Taj and an associate named Omar Bayat became Afghanistan’s leading proponents of terrorism. Taj and Omar are suspected in the downing of a Belgian airliner over North Africa two years ago.”
“I recall the incident but I don’t see a connection yet,” said Jack.
“Taj and Omar used a North Korean missile launcher in that attack — the forerunner of the Long Tooth missile system, to be precise. More importantly, Taj has a brother who fled the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. His name is Khan Ali Kahlil. He’s now a United States citizen and currently runs a delicatessen on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street, Brooklyn.”
