crept carefully down the hall. She peered through the bullet-riddled doorway. Another assassin lay sprawled on his back, arms outstretched. A line of ragged bloody holes had been stitched up his abdomen. The corpse’s eyes were askew, dead lips curled back from yellow teeth. Then she saw Jack, hunched over a man in a thick leather chair. He wore a tailored suit, now ruined by powder burns and bloodstains. He was an elderly man. Silver hair framed a substantial hole in the top of his skull. Bifocals dangled from his ear.
“Mother of God. Who is he?”
“Felix Tanner.” Jack tossed the dead man’s open wallet onto the desk, but Caitlin focused her attention on the ragged hole in Jack’s jacket, the blood seeping through the tear in the sleeve. She saw he was wincing.
“You’re hurt!” She moved to help him, but Jack pulled away, searching the desktop.
“There’s got to be a clue, something in this office that will tell me who’s directing this terrorist cell. Whoever it is, he’s covering his tracks. Felix Tanner probably knew the man’s identity or he wouldn’t have been murdered.”
Caitlin watched Jack as he desperately tore through the office, scattering papers across the desk, over the dead body on the floor.
Her eyes drifted to a television monitor in the corner of the office. It was on, though there was no sound. The man on the screen wore bulky black clothes and a ski mask. He stared into the camera as his lips moved.
“Jack? Come here. I think you should see this.”
Jack stared at the monitor, adjusted the sound. He and Caitlin both listened as the masked man explained that he would not shoot down any commercial aircraft if each major airline transferred five hundred million dollars to a numbered Swiss account in the next sixty minutes.
“This isn’t terrorism,” said Jack Bauer. “It’s extortion.”
A pall had descended over the Situation Room as the Threat Clock ran down to zero hour. The room was quiet, all eyes on the wall-sized HDTV monitor. The massive screen was broken up into five sections — each displayed live surveillance video feeds from locations inside the perimeters of Logan Airport in Boston, Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., O’Hare in Chicago, and Los Angeles International Airport just a few miles from CTU headquarters. One section in the middle of the screen was still dark.
“I don’t see New York. Why don’t I see New York?” Ryan Chappelle snapped, his voice betraying nervous tension.
“The satellite is almost in position,” Nina replied. A moment later, crystal clear satellite imagery focused on a section of LaGuardia Airport.
“What about JFK?” Ryan asked.
“We’re blind. Georgi Timko claimed he didn’t have the resources to set up camera surveillance, and the NSA would only allow us access to one satellite.”
“I don’t like relying on some Russian mobster—”
“Ukrainian,” Doris interrupted.
“Some
Nina frowned. “Face reality, Ryan. Without local resources, what choice did we have?”
“We’re at fifty-nine seconds,” Jamey Farrell announced.
Ryan stared at the huge screen as he spoke into a headset. “All CTU tactical units report. Is everyone in position?”
“Boston, ready,” said Milo Pressman from a workstation. On his screen he watched a grid map of Logan Airport, where a blinking blip represented the CTU tactical team lying in ambush for the terrorists to arrive.
“D.C., ready,” said a red-eyed Cindy Carlisle, the only survivor from Cyber Unit Team Alpha. “O’Hare, ready,” said Jamey Farrell. “New York City, ready,” said Doris. “Georgi says his teams are in place at both airports.” “LAX, ready,” said the voice of Tony Almeida, speaking from the ambush site at the airport. “Ten seconds,” said Nina. “Nine…eight…” “I see activity on the service road,” said Jamey.
“Positive contact at O’Hare. ” “Six…five…” “Contact at JFK,” Doris cried. “I hear gunfire.” On the HDTV screen, the satellite captured real-time images — flashes of gunfire, moving cars, an explosion. Eerily, there was no sound. “Three…two…” “Gunfire at Logan. The tactical team is already moving,” yelled Milo. “Zero…”
21. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5 P.M. AND 6 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
A voice crackled over Tony Almeida’s headset. “We have contact. Two black Ford Explorers, coming in from the south. You should be able to see them in thirty seconds.”
“Jamming?” Tony asked.
“Since they entered the perimeter their cell phones and radios have been jammed,” the voice replied. “Not that they noticed.”
Tony lowered the binoculars and stepped back into hiding.
“I see them on the service road,” he said softly.
Tony stood with Captain Schneider and a member of Blackburn’s tactical assault team between two empty shipping containers the size of semitrucks. Other members of the CTU tactical team were also hidden — behind a cluster of aircraft signal lights, in a storm drain under the runway, inside a small concrete utility building. All wore black overalls and thick body armor and were heavily armed. Jessica Schneider’s left arm was in a sling, wrapped tightly against her chest.
Captain Schneider squinted at the tiny screen on the PDA in her hand. “They’re moving into position next to runway six, right where the data from the memory stick said they’d go.”
“Get ready. We move as soon as they exit the vehicles. I want snipers to take out the drivers so no one gets away,” Tony commanded.
“Roger,” said Blackburn from inside the concrete building.
“Ready to go,” said Special Agent Rosetti from his hiding place under the runway.
“Snipers in position, aiming at targets,” reported the men at the signal lights.
Tony glanced at Captain Schneider. Under the harsh Southern California sun, her face was pale and drawn. Sweat beaded her upper lip, which trembled slightly. “Ready?” he asked.
“Maybe I should sit this one out,” Jessica replied. “My arm. ”
Tony grasped the problem immediately. Captain Schneider was gun-shy. Not frightened, exactly. Just rattled. She’d been wounded. Now she held back, hesitated to get back into the saddle.
“Come on,” Tony said with a smile. “I brought you all the way to the ball. The least you can do is dance.”
Jessica smiled back at him, and Tony saw some of her old spirit return. “You do go on, Special Agent Almeida. Why, I think you could turn a girl’s head.”
Tony fixed her with his gaze. “Don’t go soft on me now, Captain. I was just starting to get back that old
Captain Schneider grinned. “Well, if you put it like that…”
Her voice trailed off as she drew her Marine-issue.45. Tony peered out from between the two metal containers. The terrorists for hire — members of the Manolos, a Mexican street gang Dante Arete recruited out of South Central — had exited their vehicles and were setting up the missile launcher.
Tony spoke into the microphone. “Snipers take aim. Tactical Team, move on my command…”
Georgi Timko slung the AK–47 over his shoulder and stepped over to the bullet-riddled SUV. Safety glass lay scattered on the ground, sparkling like spilled jewels in the afternoon sun. Inside the SUV’s open bay, a young Afghani’s dead arms dangled over the edge of the truck bed. The Ukrainian dragged the man to the ground and sat down in the door of the truck with a satisfied sigh. Other armed men circled the perimeter, checking inside the vehicles, the contents of the dead men’s pockets.
