spray, followed by shrieks of confusion, terror, and agony.
Milo turned, gagged, dropped his cell.
Inside the glass-enclosed computer room, Pyrex tubes inside the “rusty pipes” in the ceiling ruptured the moment Mickey Chen tried to gain access to the data without first entering the proper security code. But it was not water pouring down on Milo’s colleagues. Mickey had inadvertently triggered the computer’s real firewall — a downpour of scorching acid. While Milo watched helplessly, the caustic chemical shower rained down on Mickey Chen and Nell Henkel, burning great smoking pits in their living flesh.
Mercifully the screaming stopped almost as soon as it began. A white chemical mist instantly filled the computer room as the acid fumed. Inside the haze, flashes of sizzling electricity erupted as thousands of volts of electricity crackled through the computer room. The searing, melting bodies flopped in an obscene dance before they toppled to the gouged and pitted concrete.
Somewhere in his horrified mind, Milo deduced that the caustic chemical was probably hydrochloric acid, an excellent conductor of electricity. A shower of the stuff would effectively fry the circuits along with anyone tampering with the computer before any data could be recovered.
Choking back the hot bile that rose in his throat, Milo watched as the chemical soup continued to cook away flesh, muscle, hair — until nothing remained but twitching, smoking mounds of flesh and bone.
Jack’s vision fogged as oxygen deprivation scrambled his brain. Though weakening, he continued to claw at the noose around his throat and struggle against the man who loomed over him. But the Afghani’s full weight was on Jack, pinning him to the bench. Ali Kahlil grunted with the effort as he pulled the noose tighter.
Jack could not break the man’s grip, so he tried a desperate bid to fool his assassin. Abruptly Jack ceased struggling, went limp. After a long moment the pressure of the noose and the man’s weight eased slightly — enough for Jack to suddenly shift position and push upward with all his strength.
The top of Jack’s head slammed into Khan’s jaw with a satisfying crack. Jack saw stars, felt a sharp pain, but he knew the Afghani was hurting more. Khan Ali Kahlil attempted to choke him again, but Jack managed to get both hands around the cord. Though the rough hemp ripped the palms of his hands, the rope no longer strangled Jack. Now the dog was controlling the leash, and Jack used his weight to throw Khan Ali Kahlil backward, against the aluminum guardrail. He felt the man’s ribs crack, heard the Afghani howl.
Khan Ali Kahlil still gripped the garrote, and that was his mistake. Younger, stronger, and better trained, Jack recovered immediately. Now he used his own weight to press Khan against the rail while he pummeled the man with his elbows, the backs of his arms. Finally Jack seized the Afghani man’s wrist and twisted out of his grip. The bones in Khan’s forearms twisted, then snapped. He howled and released the cord. An elbow to his face shattered Khan’s nose, sending black blood cascading down the front of his loose cotton shirt.
Jack could easily finish the man, but he needed Khan alive and as cooperative as possible. He whirled, pinned Khan’s good arm behind his back.
“Surrender,” Jack cried, pressing the man against the Promenade’s aluminum guardrail. “Tell me what your brother is doing with the Lynch brothers and Felix Tanner. Tell me where the missile launchers are hidden. Cooperate and I can guarantee the President of the United States will grant you immunity from all past crimes.”
Eyes bright, Khan ceased struggling as he seemed to consider Jack’s words. He grinned behind the ooze of blood that gushed from his flattened nose. “I will help you.”
Jack stepped back, released the man. “Listen to me, Khan Ali Kahlil. I know that you’ve made a life for yourself here. Don’t throw it all away for a struggle that is not yours, for a dying cause—”
Khan lashed out, slamming Jack’s jaw with a balled fist. The blow was meant to crush his throat, but Jack saw it coming and dodged it. Khan turned and jumped over the guardrail. Jack made it to the fence in time to see the man land headfirst on the roadway forty feet below, in the path of rushing traffic. Horns blared, brakes squealed, a woman screamed.
Jack looked away, stumbled to the bench where he’d almost lost his life. The flesh around Jack’s throat was raw, his palms gouged and sticky with blood. He stared at the wounds. As the adrenaline drained out of him, his hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
He felt weak and nauseated. He thought of his wife, Teri, his daughter, Kim — now almost a teenager. Who would take care of his family if he had died here, a wanted fugitive three thousand miles from home, hunted by the FBI?
Glancing up, Jack’s gaze traveled across the river and up the gleaming glass walls of the World Trade Center. Those towers, the city around them — it all seemed so massive and permanent. Was this city, this country really in mortal danger? Could this enormous city, this entire nation, ever really be hurt by a haphazard cadre of individual terrorists? As he gazed at those twin towers, so solid, so substantial, the concept suddenly seemed absurd. Yet Jack knew from experience the kind of acts such men as Taj and Khan Ali Kahlil and the Lynch brothers were capable.
Jack reached for his cell phone to check back with CTU. With Khan Ali Kahlil dead and his brother Taj missing, Jack had run out of options. Then remembered he’d given the phone, ID, PDA, and even his.45 to Caitlin — and right now he didn’t even know where she was.
A battered Liam immediately left the scene of the lethal explosion. Delivery was impossible, and he still clutched the silver attache case. The first time he’d made a delivery to Taj, several weeks ago or more, Shamus told him that if something happened and he couldn’t make the delivery, he was to return the case to the Lynch brothers’ Green Dragon store in Forest Hills. With no other plan, Liam now followed those same instructions.
Unfortunately, the blast and subsequent rupture of a water main had forced the closure of the 2 and 3 train routes, so it took him nearly forty-five minutes to walk across downtown Brooklyn to the nearest working subway, the Manhattan-bound R train.
Now, as he sat in a corner seat in the crowded subway, the attache case on his lap, his sister Caitlin’s words from the night before came to mind.
Liam fingered the case, noting for the first time that one of the clasps had already been broken and hung loose — probably by the fall onto the subway tracks. He touched the other latch and it sprung open. Liam paused, looked around.
If the case was full of money or cocaine or something, he didn’t want anyone else in the packed subway to notice. But everyone was minding his own business, reading the paper or dozing or listening to music on their Walkmans so he decided to risk it.
Taking a deep breath, Liam opened the case.
Inside he found sponge packing material and a black plastic device lying in a formed depression. Long and thin, the black plastic object seemed innocent enough. Liam touched it, picked it up. On the smooth unbroken surface he saw a serial number, a plug-in port of some kind, and nothing else. Obviously the object was just what Shamus said it was, some bloody part for a computer.
Liam placed the device back into the depression, lifted the sponge packing. Under it he saw two black squares, each the size of a pack of coffin nails. They were completely covered with electrical tape. More tape held the squares to the side of the case. Liam figured it was just more packing material. He closed the case and leaned back with relief.
In another hour or so he’d be in Forest Hills. He could return the case to Shamus, go back to The Last Celt and catch some zeds at last…
Jamey was following Nina Myers’s sole lead — the identity of Felix Tanner. Using state, federal, and local databases, banking information, tax records, and corporate registers, she found some interesting connections.
For one thing, according to tax records from the Lynch brothers’ Green Dragon franchise, most of the shop’s income was generated by a vaguely worded contract Griffin Lynch had signed with Prolix Security, the firm taken over by Felix Tanner.
