called from within. Dobyns winked at Tony and opened the door.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn, but Tony could see two computer monitors flickering brightly, a figure seated in a chair facing them, his back turned to the door. Computers and components were scattered about on tables and chairs, even on the floor.
Dobyns opened his mouth to speak; Tony silenced him, stepped over the threshold.
“Richard Lesser? I need to speak—”
Tony never saw the truncheon that came down hard on the back of his head. Mercifully, he never felt the blow, either.
That pain, and more, would come later.
Jack Bauer observed the suspect through a one-way mirror. The Middle Eastern youth was locked in an interrogation room in the LAPD’s Central Facilities. Routine prisoners were taken to one of the city’s jails and booked there. But celebrity criminals — or soon to be celebrity, as was the case with this man — were often brought here because the press had not yet tumbled upon the existence of cells and interrogation rooms in what was basically a garage and repair facility a block away from the Los Angeles bus station.
The interrogation room was dim, the man pinned in a single column of bright white light as he sat immobile on a restraining seat, staring straight ahead, arms and legs shackled. His torn, bloodstained clothing had been collected as evidence. Now the killer wore virgin white overalls, white tube socks sans shoes. He’d been scrubbed clean, too. Blood samples and bits of human flesn had been collected from his skin, from under his fingernails, from between his teeth. His raven-black long hair was still damp.
Detective Frank Castalano stood at Jack’s shoulder, his partner Jerry Alder a discreet distance away.
“I might have called you in even if this wasn’t personal, Jack,” Castalano was saying. “This man’s a Saudi national. He’s been talking jihad, praising Allah, and claiming he was doing the will of a terrorist named Hasan. When we ran his fingerprints, his education visa gave him away, and his name turned up on a Department of Homeland Security memo as a person of interest.”
Jack took the file from Castalano’s hand, flipped through it.
“His name is Ibn al Farad, twenty-two years old,” Castalano continued. “His father is Omar al Farad, a millionaire vice president of the Royal Saudi Bank of Riyadh and a Deputy Minister in the government. He sent Ibn to America to study at the University of Southern California, but the boy vanished a year ago. The Saudi Arabian Consulate is looking for this kid and they may get word of his capture at any time…”
Jack’s studied the suspect. “So now Ibn al Farad has resurfaced, this time as the suspect in a heinous multi-murder.” Bauer shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Has he given any sort of statement?”
Castalano frowned. “He was ranting when we caught him, babbling in the helicopter, and chattering all the way down here to the interrogation room. But as soon as we started asking real questions, taping his words, the suspect stopped talking.”
“You say he spoke of a man named Hasan,” said Jack, recalling that same name had cropped up in the past twenty-four hours in connection with the fugitive Richard Lesser.
“He kept referring to this Hasan as ‘the old man on the mountain.’ Claimed that’s what he was doing driving like a madman all over the San Gabriels— trying to find the old man.”
Bauer frowned. The reference to the old man on a mountain jogged something in Jack’s brain, but he could not isolate the memory thread and gave up. “You said he was high on some drug?”
Castalano showed Jack the vial he pulled out of the wrecked Jaguar. “I thought it was methamphetamine, dyed blue for street marketing, maybe a gang marking. But it’s not meth, which might explain the color.”
Jack held the vial up to the light and his frown deepened. “This is a new drug called Karma,” he said hoarsely. “This stuff makes meth look like NoDoz.”
Jack handed the vial back to Castalano. “Did he have anything else on him? A murder weapon? A copy of the Koran?”
“He had a note. It’s in Ibn al Farad’s own handwriting — we matched it with university records. But the note doesn’t make much sense, it just seems like ravings scrawled when this guy was under the influence.”
Castalano opened another file, showed Jack the handwritten document now sealed in a Mylar evidence bag. The handwriting alternated from tiny and cramped to expansive, the language lapsed between
English and his native Arabic.
“Crazy stuff,” muttered the detective.
But from what Jack could understand from scanning the man’s writings, it was not all that crazy — not to a newly converted Muslim fanatic who claimed to have experienced a powerful vision of the afterlife, as Ibn al Farad did in this document. The man also vowed to purge the Islamic world of the satanic and pervasive influence of American culture.
Could that have been the reason why Hugh Vetri and his family were murdered? Because he made movies?
Much of the document was unreadable and Jack gave up trying. Perhaps CTU’s Language and Document Division could make more sense of it.
Bauer turned his back to the prisoner, faced Detective Castalano.
“Frank, I need to move Ibn al Farad to CTU Headquarters for a thorough interrogation. As a suspect in a homicide, there are limits to the means the L.A. police can use to break him. But as the obvious perpetrator of the brutal terrorist act, the assassin of Hugh Vetri, a prominent and influential U.S. citizen, CTU can push his interrogation to the limit using methods you don’t want to know about.”
He could see the war behind Castalano’s eyes. “Believe me, Frank,” Jack continued. “I can break this man, but not here. Police methods are inadequate in the face of this man’s fanaticism.”
Castalano’s features darkened. “A couple of years ago, the loss of basic civil liberties you’re talking about would have scared the hell out of me…But that was before I saw the horrors in Hugh Vetri’s home this morning.”
The detective paused, thought of that van full of innocent kids, thought of his own. He swallowed hard. “If the Chief of Police signs off on the transfer, then this bastard’s yours. But I’m going with you, Jack. I’m going to sit in on this man’s interrogation and I’m going to hunt down any accomplices he names, no matter who they are.”
Fay Hubley heard a sound in the hall outside the door of her hotel room. Heavy footsteps, then whispering. She quietly saved her work, put the computer to sleep and slipped out of her chair. Silently she crept across the room. Remembering Tony’s instructions, she placed her ear against the door rather than open the peephole — a move that only served to alert anyone lurking outside that the room was occupied.
Fay held her breath, listened for a long moment. She heard nothing. Relieved, she took a step toward the bathroom. The knock exploded like thunder in the tiny room and the noise made her jump.
Tony had told her that if someone knocked, she was to pretend she wasn’t there, that the room was empty. With the chain lock in place, even with a key, it would be difficult for someone to get inside without making a whole lot of noise and attracting undue attention.
Fay stifled a gasp when she noticed she’d neglected to fasten the chain lock after Tony left with Dobyns. The knock came again. Louder and more insistent this time.
Fay remembered the gun Tony had given her, telling her to have it in her hand if anyone tried to gain entry to the room. There’d been two Glocks hidden in their van outside and he’d brought one of them up, shown her how to fire it — but she had told herself the entire time she didn’t want to fire it, never intended to, wouldn’t have to. So she’d shoved it beneath a pillow on her bed.
Now she’d have to choose — run for the gun or fasten the chain.
Practically leaping to the door, she fumbled with the metal links, barely got it fastened into place before the door reverberated from a powerful blow that knocked her backward. The frame splintered, the lock and chain gave way, and the door flew open.
Fay opened her mouth to scream, but the first of three men was too fast. His hand closed over Fay’s mouth, even as he dragged her to the bed. Two other men followed the first one into the room, slammed the broken door
